Manoj Arora, the executive assistant and alleged close-aid of Robert Vadra, has appeared before the Enforcement Directorate, in relation to a money laundering case. As per reports, Arora is being grilled by the ED for his alleged involvement in Robert Vadra’s benami properties in the UK.
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On December 8, The ED had raided several premises related to Vadra and had questioned multiple persons connected to the case, which included Congress worker and another close aide of Robert Vadra, Jagdish Sharma. ED had stated that the raids were conducted on suspected individuals believed to have received money from arms dealers.
In December last year, ED had issued a Look Out Circular against Manoj Arora. Later, after Arora failed to answer several summons by the probing agency, ED had moved to the court to issue an open-ended non-bailable warrant (NBW), so as to ask Interpol to issue a Red Corner Notice against Arora, who they feared has escaped the country.
The money laundering case against Manoj Arora was initiated after investigative agencies began probing arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari and confidential defence ministry documents were found in his possession. Following which, one email thread was found from Sanjay Bhandari’s computer, between Monoj Arora, Sanjay Bhandari and Robert Vadra. The email, according to ED, was regarding a London property worth Rs 1.9 million pounds.
The agency claimed that the property was purchased by Sanjay Bhandari and sold in 2010 at the same price despite incurring additional expenses for renovation. It remarked, “This gives credence to the fact that Bhandari was not the actual owner of the property but it was beneficially owned by Vadra who was incurring expenditure on the renovation of this property.”
Agencies are also probing Vadra’s alleged involvement in various land deal scams. With questioning going on Majoj Arora, troubles for Gandhi family’s son-in-law doesn’t seem to be ending.