Enforcement Directorate wants a strong case against Vijay Mallya
The investigators said that it will help in getting the money trail and ascertaining if the loan money was laundered in these countries.
Mumbai: A team of Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials has landed in the United Kingdom (UK) to submit the charge sheet and other documents against fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya to build a watertight case against him.
The ED officials’ UK visit comes a month after they filed a charge sheet before the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Mumbai in June this year.
While in the UK, the officials will brief Crown Prosecution Services’ (CPS) officials about specific details of the charge sheet, which will be put up before the UK court in December when the latter will hear India’s extradition plea on Mallya.
The ED is also in the process of sending letters rogatory (LR) to at least six countries, including Ireland and Mauritius, for gathering details about Mallya’s monetary transactions in these countries for the time period when his company sought loans from the bank consortium.
The investigators said that it will help in getting the money trail and ascertaining if the loan money was laundered in these countries.
An ED officer said, “A team headed by joint director of ED has gone to the UK. The laws in both countries are different and hence authorities there have to be briefed in detail about the investigation .”
They will also be infor-med about furtherance of the investigation and LRs that ED is planning to send to six countries with which Mallya had business ties or where he is alleged to have diverted the funds, officials said.
In June, the ED filed a charge sheet in the money-laundering case related to default of the Rs 900 crore loan taken from IDBI Bank under the pretext of utilising funds towards Mallya’s now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines. The ED also submitted a detailed dossier to CPS on the web of shell companies that Mallya used to remit over Rs 3,500 crore outside India.