Mumbai: The Enforcement Dire-ctorate (ED) on Monday arrested Geodesic Pvt Ltd managing director Kiran Prakash Kulkarni and chairman Pankaj Omk-arprasad Shrivastav for their respective roles in the laundering USD 125 million (around '830 crore) in the scam. The investigators found that the accused defrauded their investors by creating shell companies in the British Virgin Islands, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Switzerland.
The two accused played active roles in laundering money via fictitious dealings in EEMF (Enterprise Emer-ging Market Fund) and gained heavily in the scam. The roles of the bigwigs came to the fore after the ED arrested the firm’s executive director, Pra-shant Mulekar, and tax consultant Dinesh
Jajodia. “The duo had most important roles in laundering funds. We have arrested them and further questioning on the transfer of funds will be carried out,” said an ED officer.
The chartered accountant allegedly helped the duo rout the funds. Jajodia (51) allegedly plotted a criminal conspiracy to defraud the shareholders as well as overseas FCCB (foreign currency convertible bonds) holders or investors by creating a web of shell companies in various countries through fictitious dealings in order to receive wrongful gains.
The ED had registered a PMLA case against the firm on the basis of the Mumbai police’s Economic Offences Wing’s (EOW) probe in 2016. Jajodia, an authorised signatory of various overseas companies located in the UAE, Hong Kong and the British Virgin Islands, was arrested for his role in aiding in the laundering of FCCB money amounting to USD 125 million, said an ED source.
The accused firm had raised USD 125 million under FCCB for which a London-based bank had acted as a trustee. The utilisation of the funds was proposed as investment in foreign subsidiaries or new overseas acquisitions, the source said.
