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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday carried out searches at 15 locations across Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi in connection with the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) ghee adulteration fraud case.
The raids were conducted in Maharashtra's Ahilyanagar and Mumbai, Rajasthan's Bikaner, Uttarakhand's Dehradun and Roorkee, Tamil Nadu's Dindigul, Andhra Pradesh's Guntur, and Delhi. ED claimed to have seized cash amounting to Rs 60 lakh during the day-long operation. The searches also led to disclosures regarding investments of Proceeds of Crime (PoC) in properties valued at more than Rs 45 crore, apart from details of several immovable properties held in the names of the accused persons and their family members, the agency said. ED further said its Hyderabad zonal office conducted the operation covering the residential and office premises of Pomil Jain, Vipin Jain, Raju Rajasekaran, Rajesh Mansukhlal Chavda, Apurva Vinaykanth Chavda, Machindra Shantaram Lanke, Ajay Kumar Sugandh, Mahesh Kumar Rohira, and Ashish Agarwal. The search operations further covered the dairy plants of AR Dairy Food Pvt Ltd in Dindigul; Malganga Milk and Agro Products Pvt Ltd in Ahilyanagar; and Bhole Baba Organic Dairy Milk Pvt Ltd in Roorkee. Various incriminating documents were seized, indicating the use of a complex network of legal entities to facilitate bogus sale and purchase transactions for concealment and layering of Proceeds of Crime, said the federal agency in a statement. ED initiated an investigation under the PMLA, 2002, based on a First Information Report (FIR) registered against AR Dairy Food Pvt Ltd and others. It is alleged that the accused persons, in conspiracy with certain TTD officials, committed criminal breach of trust, cheating, and caused wrongful loss to TTD by supplying adulterated ghee. ED said its investigation conducted so far has revealed that the "Proceeds of Crime generated through the supply of adulterated ghee to TTD were subsequently invested in immovable properties through a complex web of interconnected legal entities and business concerns to conceal the illicit origin of funds." (ANI)
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