AHMEDABAD: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Jignesh Bhajiawala, a Surat-based tea vendor turned money lender, on Friday for money laundering and allegedly using fake IDs to convert old currency notes worth Rs. 1 crore.
Mr. Bhajiawala had reportedly used nearly 1,000 fake IDs to illegally convert the old currency notes with the new Rs. 2,000 denomination notes post-demonetisation.
The Bhajiawalas were raided by the Income Tax (IT) authorities in Surat after the demonetisation. They detected unaccounted assets worth Rs. 12 crore and documents of properties in Surat and Mumbai.
“An amount of over Rs. 1.02 crore in new currency was seized by the IT department from during searches at home, shop and bank lockers held by them. It was also found that the accused had hired several bank lockers in benami names to stash their unaccounted for assets,” the agency stated in the FIR, which was filed after the IT authorities referred the case to the CBI.
In December, the IT had seized bullion worth Rs. 1.49 crore, gold jewellery valued at Rs. 4.92 crore, and other ornaments worth Rs. 1.39 crore.
Following the raids, the CBI interrogated the Bhajiawala family and a money laundering case was subsequently filed by the ED. According to the agency, Mr. Bhajiawala, in collusion with P. Bhatt, the then Senior Manager at Surat Peoples Cooperative Bank Limited, Udhna branch in Surat, obtained KYC files, which were taken to several photocopy centres to obtain photocopies of the IDs in the files.
