Ex-DMK minister's son gets 7-year RI in money laundering case

The son of a former DMK minister was Wednesday sentenced to seven years of rigorous imprisonment by a CBI court here in a money laundering case involving Rs 78 crore investigated by the Enforcement Directorate.

Judge R Vasanthi also imposed a fine of Rs 1 crore on Mani Anbazhagan, the son of late Ko Si Mani.

According to prosecution, foreign exchange worth about Rs 78 crore was remitted abroad by eight shell entities on production of alleged forged bills of entry to an Indian Bank branch here without any physical imports.

Anbazhagan had allegedly facilitated opening current accounts on behalf of all the eight accounts with the Indian Bank, Thousand Lights Branch here wherein Rs 97,52,99,090.48 was pooled in.

Subsequently, out of such pooled funds, foreign exchange remittances outside the country to the extent of about Rs 78 crore was fraudulently made based on forged import documents without actual imports.

The Know Your Customer (KYC) documents submitted to the bank were found to be fictitious.

After ED sleuths unearthed the links between the fake entities and Anbazhagan, they arrested him on August 7, 2017 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.