Chennai: The Enforcement Directorate, Chennai on Monday attached 30 kg of gold bars worth Rs 8.5 crore of J. Sekhar Reddy, and his associates in connection with the exchange of old notes to new currency notes under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2OO2 (PMLA).
The sand mining baron was arrested first by the CBI in December last year in connection with seizure of currency notes worth Rs 33 crores from his offices after raids by Income-Tax officials. Later, in March this year, Enforcement Directorate arrested him on charges of Money laundering.
IT officials, after raids at various offices of Sekhar Reddy, managing partner of SRS Mining seized about Rs 97 crores of Old Currencies, Rs 34 crore of new Currencies and about 177 kgs of gold bars.
According to an official statement, based on the CBI cases registered against Reddy and his associates in relation to such seizures, about Rs 34 crores of new currency seized was provisionally attached.
The officials further added that Reddy has stated that cash seized by the Income-Tax department belongs to his SRS mining Company and he admitted that it was unaccounted money.
Reddy’s accomplice, Srinivasulu has stated that he used to receive money from SRS mining and used a part of the same for converting into gold bars through Premakumar as per the instructions of Sekhar Reddy, the officials added.
The unaccounted cash was converted into gold bars through an associate Prem Kumar, from whose residence I-T officials seized the Rs. 8.5 crore worth gold bars.
“On reasonable belief that the seized 30 kgs of gold bars, worth Rs.8.5 crore are part of proceeds of crime, the same were provisionally attached under the provisions of PMLA,” an official statement said. Further investigations are in progress.
