New Delhi
Nov. 11: The former Jharkhand chief minister, Mr Madhu Koda, and his associates allegedly invested Rs 100 crore in Bangkok and Rs 400 crore in Dubai in various industries.
While Mr Koda and his associates allegedly invested Rs 100 crore in an industry in Bangkok, a total Rs 400 crore was invested in four companies in Dubai. The ED and the income-tax authorities, now investigating allegations of hawala transactions and investme-nts by the former CM and his associates, revealed that Koda and his aides have in all 478 bank accounts acr-oss the country. “We are al-so examining details of PAN cards recovered from the residences of Koda and his aides,” a source said.
The source said Mr Vikas Sinha, a close associate of Mr Koda and brother of Mr Binod Sinha, had visited Bangkok and Dubai several times. Blue Project is learnt to be the name of one of their companies in Dubai.
Vikas Sinha had also visited Japan and China to buy some equipment for Blue Project, the source said, explaining that Mr Vikas had revealed this during his recent interrogation. The ED officials also held discussions with Mr Vikas on Wednesday about certain papers provided by income-tax officers.
“Vikas has confessed that his brother and Koda invested more than Rs 500 crore in Bangkok and Dubai,” the source said. “We have sent a Letter of Request (LR) to the finance ministry, which will be forwarded to the UAE and Thailand to find out details of their investments there. Besides, LRs will be sent to Indonesia and Liberia as Mr Koda and his associates have allegedly invested there too.”
The ED on Wednesday issued fresh summons to Koda’s other associates — Manoj Punamiya, Arvind Vyas and Lalit Jain — to appear before it on November 16.