HYDERABAD: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) said it had traced hawala transactions in the Karimnagar granite transport irregularities case. Searches had led to the detection of money being routed back from Chinese entities into India in the form of ‘hand loans’ without documents. The Chinese entities are owned by Li Wenhuo, whose name has figured in the ‘Panama Papers’.
In their bid to unearth evidences pertaining to FEMA violations, the ED had conducted searches for two days at offices and residences of those associated with Swetha Granites, Swetha Agencies, Sri Venkateshwara Granites, PSR Granites, Arvind Granites, Giriraj Shipping Agencies and their related entities in Karimnagar and Hyderabad.
The entities are exporting rough granite blocks to China, Hong Kong and other countries.
The ED said more granite was exported than on which royalty was paid. In many instances, export proceeds are not realised in the declared bank accounts, thereby indicating that the amounts were received through non-banking channels, the ED said,
"The search teams found and seized unaccounted cash of Rs 1.08 crore, allegedly received in hawala against exports, and seized voluminous granite dispatch data of 10 years from the quarries. They also found numerous benami bank accounts in the name of employees of granite exporters, in which cash received against the illegal granite exports was being deposited," the ED said.
The ED said investigation was underway on the basis of a state vigilance and enforcement department report which said there had been a massive evasion of seigniorage fee.
ED grills PSR granite owner Sridhar
Days after the Enforcement Directorate raided the residences and offices of granite companies, the agency officials on Friday questioned PSR Granites owner Palakurthi Sridhar at its Hyderabad office. Later, the officials asked him to appear before the agency on November 18.
The ED suspects the role of Sridhar in transporting granite overseas along with several companies with whom he had business transactions. During raids, officials seized documents and bank account statements and questioned Sridhar on the transactions.
