The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has concluded that the Bulgarian firm which “inexplicably” transferred ₹60 crore to the bank account of a suspected fly-by-night operator in Kerala in September 2016 was a fictitious one. Highly placed ED investigators said repeated e-mails to the foreign company had bounced.
A letter sent to the firm’s office in Bulgaria has returned stating that no such address existed. No one has so far represented the firm before the agency’s adjudicators though the Bulgarian Embassy had requested the immediate return of money that had been seized under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
Investigators said the fraud unearthed so far was only the tip of the ice berg. The suspicious transaction could be part of an international professional money laundering operation to help the Bulgarian mafia clean the proceeds from the narcotic trade, illegal sale of stolen antiques and human trafficking.
It could also be an attempt by some Gulf-based hawala syndicate to reroute corrupt takings as legitimate business earnings to Kerala.
Account holder
The account holder, a 67-year-old resident of Kochi, is the only person named as a suspect in the case so far. His case was that the cash was for the export of sunflower oil and sugar to Bulgaria. He also submitted records showing that the shipment had left the Mumbai port for that country.
However, the ED found last week that the records were fabricated and no such shipment had left Mumbai. The Harbour police in Kochi has registered a case of forgery and cheating against the suspect. Investigators said that the accused had registered several “paper companies” in Mumbai, Jaipur and Coimbatore in the past years.
However, his only known business activity in the past 15 years was the export of ₹1.5 lakh worth of sunflower oil to a foreign country in 2014. The ED has told the court that the suspect was not cooperating with its probe, which had a bearing on national security. He had travelled to Dubai despite pleading ill health to appear before the agency. The agency has sought the cancellation of his anticipatory bail.
