The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday filed a 900-page charge sheet against Pune-based businessman Hasan Ali Khan and his accomplice Kolkata-based businessman Kashinath Tapuriah under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
“In the charge sheet, we have given details about Hasan Ali's money laundering of more than Rs. 400 crore,” the ED sources told The Hindu.
Official sources said the charge sheet includes the statements of approximately a dozen witnesses.
“Hasan Ali had invested 28 million Swiss Francs to buy a hotel in Switzerland. We have given those details in the charge sheet. Also, he had Rs. 350 crore in his UBS bank account in Singapore which he got by using his fake passport. We have given all the details about that account and the transactions from there. He has also stolen some Nizam jewellery. Some of the jewellery was found to be there in his UBS bank locker. We have given all these details in the charge sheet,” a senior ED official said.
“We have filed offences under Section 3 and 4 of the PMLA,” ED counsel told the Special Judge under the PMLA here.
Hasan Ali's counsel I.A. Bagaria said that according to his knowledge, the ED filed a charge sheet based on the statements of the accused, before arrest and after arrest. “They have also included the statements of some of the family members of the accused who were interrogated, according to my knowledge,” he said.
“We have not yet got a copy of the charge sheet, we will get it tomorrow [on Saturday],” he said.
Officer suspended
Meanwhile, the ED is learnt to have suspended the Investigating Officer (IO) of the Hasan Ali case for “shoddy investigation.”
The officer in question, Amrinder Kumar Singh, was probing the case in 2007-08. The ED sources said that the agency would investigate charges against the officer for “poor investigation.”
It is alleged that Mr. Singh leaked vital and important leads about the investigation to Hasan Ali for a heavy bribe. This hampered the investigation. Higher ED officials are set to investigate the charges against him. The sources said that the officer was suspended some time last month itself.
Meanwhile, one Ishwar Prasad Khandelwal on Friday filed a private petition against Hasan Ali in the special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (Mcoca) court here, seeking a direction to slap the Act on the Pune-based businessman. The petitioner in his application alleged that Hasan Ali Khan and his associates were “suspected members of an organised criminal syndicate and hatched a conspiracy, and generated illegal wealth from money laundering and committed several cognisable offences under sections 4 of the Mcoca, 1999, and under sections 120-B, 420, 423, 424, 465 read with 34 of the Indian Penal Code. The accused and his associates are liable to be prosecuted under the present law.”
“Based on Hasan Ali's links to international arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, who is also linked to the 9/11 terror attack, and his alleged links with the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, the police should book him under the Mcoca,” Mr. Khandelwal told The Hindu.
S.T. Mahajan, Sessions Judge, Mcoca court, directed the State government to file a reply in the matter on or before May 9.
