CBI files fresh FIR against ex-FCI GM after surfacing of 'illicit' wealth

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The CBI has registered a fresh FIR against Banoth Prem Singh, a former General Manager of Food Corporation of lndia arrested in a bribery case, after the unearthing of an illicit sum of over Rs 3 crore, allegedly belonging to him, from a businessman, officials said Friday.

The information about the money surfaced during the analysis of his WhatsApp exchanges by CBI investigators who were probing him in connection with alleged bribery case, they said.

"The scrutiny of whatsapp (sic) chats, statement of bank account etc. has established that the illegal money of Banoth Prem Singh to the tune of Rs.3.47 crore were parked with G. Satyanarayan (businessman) from time to time as mentioned in the handwritten notes shared by him out of which Rs 2.47 crore were transferred to different accounts and persons or given to different persons for different purposes," the CBI FIR said.

Singh was arrested in June last year in a trap operation involving a Rs 1 lakh bribe.

The CBI had acted against him on a complaint that alleged he was colluding with middlemen and firms in corrupt activities causing wrongful gain to themselves and wrongful loss to the government exchequer in the processing of tenders pertaining to transportation of rice grains of FCl, it said.

The agency cited number of transactions forming a web, round-tripping and showing Singh's alleged 'benami income', it said.

"It is revealed in the investigation that G. Satyanarayan was dealing with the work of FCI through his son's firm Vardhan Associates," the CBI alleged in the FIR.

It alleged that the transaction between Satyanaryan and Singh seems to be "undue advantage" to the latter.

It is also likely that G. Satyanarayan was managing the illegal money of Singh, the agency alleged.