The Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted raids on Thursday at 23 locations throughout poll-bound Maharashtra and Gujarat as part of an investigation into a money laundering case involving a Malegaon-based businessman. The raids targeted significant locations in cities such as Nashik, Surat, Ahmedabad, Malegaon, and Mumbai, with emphasis on detecting hawala transactions and identifying persons involved in illegal banking operations.
According to the media reports, the ED is looking into the allegations of foreign funding ahead of the state polls. This comes a week following the Malegaon police charged a ‘businessman’ identified as Siraj Ahmed Harun Meman with misusing 12 people’s bank accounts and conducting transactions worth Rs 90 crore. The trader informed the interested parties that he intended to start a corn trading company through the Malegaon agriculture market committee and required several bank accounts. He also assured the villagers that he would help them get jobs if he was helped with the bank accounts to establish the business.
This led them to file a complaint against the trader at the Chhavani police station, where an FIR was lodged under sections 3(5), 316(5), 318 (4)(cheating), 336(3), 340(2) and 338 (forgery) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). As per the FIR copy, the incident came to the fore following one of the account holders checked his account and discovered that crores of rupees had been transacted through his account.
They all visited the bank upon contacting the others and learned that transactions totaling Rs 90 crore had been made across the 12 accounts. They filed a complaint of cheating against the trader with the concern that their accounts were being exploited for illegal activities.
Meanwhile, BJP leader Kirit Somaiya took cognizance of the incident and wrote to the Election Commission saying that money was being used to practice ‘Vote Jihad’. He said in an official complaint, “It seems hundreds of crore rupees benami transactions have taken place in October 2024. Some money would have been used for the elections, Vote Jihad,”.
The police confirmed after the investigation that the accused Ahmed exploited individuals from poor backgrounds and promised them jobs to get their details to open illegal bank accounts. According to the media reports around 2200 transactions had been operated through 14 such bank accounts.
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