The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday raided the Chandigarh premises of its own former Deputy Director, Gurnam Singh, and his two contacts in connection with alleged extortion from the accused persons in ₹600-crore Unipay 2U scam.
“The searches were carried out against the former ED official, his lawyer associate Puneet Sharma and another contact who had allegedly helped him extort money from the accused persons,” said a senior ED official.
The money laundering case pertains to allegations that Unipay 2U Marketing Private Limited had cheated thousands of investors in various States by floating ponzi schemes.
Several FIRs were registered against the company and its functionaries, based on which the ED also initiated money laundering probe. Several bank accounts of the company were attached.
Further investigation led to searches against the Unipay 2U agents in July last year and then, main accused Kamal K. Bakshi was also arrested.
During interrogation, he and the other accused purportedly disclosed that Mr. Gurnam Singh’s lawyer friend extorted money from them and also got at least three properties located in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab transferred in the name of his contacts.
Parent organisation
Based on the preliminary findings, the ED had repatriated Mr. Gurnam Singh to his parent organisation, Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Chandigarh, in January last year. He retired last November.
Last year, the Central Bureau of Investigation had booked Mr. Gurnam Singh for alleged corruption and amassing wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income.
Mr. Gurnam Singh was on deputation in the ED between 2012 and 2017. The CBI had alleged that the value of assets he amassed was 328% more than his known sources of income.
