The alleged ₹1,600-crore money-laundering scam unearthed in Visakhapatnam took a new turn with the Commissioner of Police, T. Yoganand, stating that ₹800 crore was sent as outward remittances to foreign destinations from one single account in a public sector bank located on Netaji Subha Chandra Bose Road in Kolkata in 2016.
Raising doubts over the involvement of several others, including bankers, he said it was in this same bank that ₹90 crore was deposited in one account on a single day. “How can such a huge deposit go unnoticed or unquestioned by the bankers,” he questioned.
The Visakhapatnam city police on Monday produced before the media the prime accused, Vaddi Mahesh, who was arrested on Sunday evening at the Visakhapatnam airport, as soon as he landed from Kolkata.
Mr. Yoganand said the case had been handed over to the AP-CID, as the city police did not have the “manpower or expertise” to handle an economic offence of this magnitude.
Mahesh is the key accused and the first to be arrested in the case. In all, nine accused have been named in the complaint filed by the Income Tax department at the MVP police station in Visakhapatnam last Friday.
The case was unearthed by an IT department team. After three months of investigation, the IT department zeroed in on the accused, Vaddi Mahesh, his father, Vaddi Srinivasa Rao, and two of his cousins, Achanta Harish and Achanta Rajesh, and five others.
Hunt on for 6 accused
Harish and Rajesh have been questioned, while hunt is on for Srinivasa Rao and five others, Mr. Yoganand said.
According to the FIR, Mahesh and his gang had opened 12 shell companies and were operating 30 fictitious accounts to launder about ₹1,600 crore since 2013 by remitting to five foreign companies — one in China, three in Singapore and one in Hong Kong — fraudulently towards purchase of customised software, with the help of forged documents.
