Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) carried out a raid between Friday night and Saturday morning at four locations in Zaveri Bazaar after it learnt that Rs 69 crore in undisclosed cash had been transferred to the accounts of four bullion traders who are employed with Balaji Bullions & Commodities Private Limited, the names of whom have not been disclosed.
The ED registered a case against the accused under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and is likely to arrest the accused soon. Sources have revealed that the accused might also be involved in two separate multi-crore scams.
ED officials conducted a search in the office of Balaji Bullions & Commodities Private Limited. According to ED sources, the director of the firm, Manojkumar Babulal Punamiya, is allegedly involved in other big scams.
Speaking about the seizure, an ED source said, “We raided the place after receiving information from our intelligence sources. We raided four places and seized documents, most of which are related to financial transactions. We came to know that an undisclosed amount of Rs 69 crore had been transferred to the accounts of four bullion traders. The cash was transferred last month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had demonetised high-value currency in the form of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. We have seized Rs 1.5 crore and frozen two bank accounts of the accused.”
Agency sources said, “The transactions were allegedly made via bogus companies. The black money was transferred into these accounts to make it white in illegally to buy gold or silver. ED officials are investigating the four traders and a few other employees of the company. Meanwhile, the ED closed the office of the firm.”
An employee of RM Jewels, which has an office on another floor of the building where the Balaji Bullions & Commodities’ office is located, confirmed that the raids had occurred. He said, “We know the employees, but we never interfered in their work. We saw some people were checking files and computers early in the morning. I don’t know that they were ED officials initially, but I came to know about it later on.”
Phone calls to Balaji Bullions & Commodities on numbers that the firm has made available went unanswered at the time of going to press.
