Hyderabad: The ED arrested three businessmen on Friday for allegedly making fraudulent foreign outward remittances of Rs 31.6 crore using shell companies.
ED said the arrested men were Mahender Khatri, Vinod Ojha and Anand Bidrakar from Hyderabad. The trio had sent the money out of the country claiming it was advances for imports by fabricating invoices. They were remanded to judicial custody till July 6. “Mahender Khatri obtained VAT registration certificates from commercial taxes department by submitting a fabricated rental agreement. Based on this he floated three shell companies and made outward remittances worth Rs 31.6 crore by submitting fabricated proforma invoices of foreign suppliers,” the ED said.
The ED identified three accounts in the name of Srinivasa Trading Company owned by Bhanwarlal Raj Purohit who sent Rs 9.18 crore, GS Trade owned by Juara Ram Purohit which sent '11.44 crore and Vinayaka Enterprises owned by Babulal Hari Singh which sent Rs 10.98 crore. ED booked the case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act based on an FIR issued by the Chandanagar police station on May 20, 2017, based on a complaint by HDFC Bank. Investigations found that Vinod Ojha had accepted several crores from Mahender Khatri and deposited it in bank accounts using the names of several firms.
Anand Bhaskar infused the cash into shell companies under his control. ED alleged the accused caused substantial foreign exchange loss without any actual imports into India.
