Hyd bullion firm owner held for suspected money laundering

A proprietor of a gold bullion firm has been arrested by the police probing the case of generating fake and fictitious advance payment receipts for depositing unaccounted money in banks after demonetisation.
Central Crime Station, a wing of the Hyderabad Police, yesterday apprehended Neel Sunder Tharad, the proprietor of M/s Astha Lakshmi Gold Bullion located at Secunderabad.
After demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 bills on November 8 last year, Tharad conspired with the accused Kailash Chand Gupta and others of Musaddilal Jewellers and other firms to hatch a plan to convert huge unaccounted amounts with them into new currency by depositing in banks or by purchasing gold etc, Hyderabad Police said in a release today.

In December last year, police had arrested Gupta for his alleged involvement in cheating and manipulation of records for illegal gain.
Gupta, along with his sons Nitin and Nikhil, daughter-in-law Neha and others, had allegedly conspired and hatched a plan to convert their black money by depositing it with banks by generating fake and fabricated receipts for wrongful gains, police had said.
According to police, Tharad accumulated around Rs 28 crore from persons known to him for exchanging the same for 30 per cent commission and also negotiated with Nitin Gupta and others of Musaddilal Jewellers to pay a commission of 10 per cent from his share for getting the amounts exchanged through their firms.

Fake and fictitious Advance payment receipts were generated for an amount of Rs 57.85 crore in name of Musaddilal Gems and Jewelers Pvt. Ltd., and fake Advance payment receipts for an amount of Rs 40 crore in name of Vaishnavi Bullion, purported to be acquired from about 5200 customers, police had said.
The release said: "Tharad, along with others, deposited the accumulated amounts of about Rs 40 crore in Vaishnavi Bullion, a sister concern of Musaddilal Jewelers and subsequently diverted the amounts into two accounts of Astha Lakshmi Gold Bullion belonging to him. Later, the same was diverted to other accounts for purchase of gold."

Further investigation is on.