Chennai: The Enforcement Directorate in Chennai attached Rs 33.74 crore of cash in new currency that was seized from sand baron J Sekhar Reddy and his associates during income-tax department raids immediately after demonetisation came into force in November last year.
According to a press release from ED, Chennai, a provisional attachment order for Rs 33.74 crore cash against Reddy and his associates in connection with exchange of old notes to new currency notes under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) has been issued. The new currency notes were believed to be proceeds of crime and the same provisionally attached, said ED.
The ED and CBI had in December 2016 registered cases separately against the PWD contractor and sacked TTD board member Sekhar Reddy and associates, after income-tax sleuths seized a total of Rs 131 crore cash including Rs 34 crore worth new notes of Rs 2000 and 177 kg gold seized from him and his associates Srinivasulu and Prem Kumar.
In March this year all the three were arrested by ED. Reddy was earlier arrested by the CBI too in the same case of alleged black money generation post demonetisation and was out on conditional bail. The ED had filed a criminal complaint against Reddy and others based on a CBI FIR in the case which was registered after the I-T department first searched his premises and those of his associates in November last year.
The Reddy case, which is being probed by multiple agencies, is considered the most high-profile black money case being investigated in the aftermath of the notes ban.
