Mumbai: Chandrakant Patel, the proprietor of Mumbai based Pushpak Bullion Pvt Ltd, was on Saturday remanded to the Enforcement Directorate's custody till September 26. Mr. Patel was on Friday arrested for allegedly using ₹84.5 crore in demonetised currency to buy 258 kg of gold through two city-based firms.
ED counsel Hiten Venegavkar presented an application before the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court that said Mr Patel has committed offences under Section 3 (offence of money-laundering) and Section 4 (punishment for money laundering) under PMLA.
The ED has recorded the statement of Mayur Chawda, proprietor of Satnam Jewels, who said he used to work for Pushpak Bullion and later with Mr. Patel’s, he started his own business. Mr. Chawda has claimed that all negotiations and arrangements for deposit of the demonetised currency was managed by Mr. Patel. He said the cash, which was unaccounted, was deposited and projected as proceeds from the sale of gold.
The ED’s remand application says, “It is noticed that at the time of demonetisation, huge cash amounts were deposited in old currency in the current account of M/s Pihu Gold, totalling of ₹47.45 crore and in the current account of M/s Satnam Jewels, totalling ₹37.15 crore. Both accounts were held with Union bank of India, Zaveri Bazaar, Mumbai.”
After cash deposits by Pihu Gold and Satnam Jewels, the money was transferred and gold was purchased by Pushpak Bullion. The gold was again sold to six firms. The ED said it is important to get the custody of Mr. Patel to trace the trail of the money and to ascertain channels and companies it has been routed to.
The ED’s probe is based on an FIR registered by the Anti-Corruption wing of the CBI in February this year against officials of the Union Bank of India, through which the transactions were made, as well as proprietors of all three firms. The ED found that the transaction to buy the gold was allowed by the bank in spite of Pushpak’s account being declared a Non-Performing Asset in February 2016.
“Investigations showed that the gold was sold by Pihu Gold and Satnam Jewels during Navratri and Diwali in 2016, but an amount corresponding to the proceeds of that sale was deposited in their accounts after demonetisation, indicating an attempt to launder black money,” the ED has said in its remand application.
