The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in its 7000 plus pages supplementary charge sheet against former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh has said that Deshmukh and his family members have laundered over Rs 50 Crores through different companies.
Deshmukh, who was till recently Maharashtra’s Home Minister, is a senior leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) is in jail after his arrest on November 2.
In the charge sheet filed before special PMLA Court in Mumbai, the ED further claimed Deshmukh was the primary beneficiary of the money laundering of a sum of Rs 4.7 Crore allegedly collected between December 2020-March 2021. ED said that the arrested Mumbai cop Sachin Vaze had extorted the said amount from bars and hotels across Mumbai on the instruction of Anil Deshmukh who was the Home Minister of Maharashtra.
ED has now formally named Deshmukh’s two sons Hrishikesh and Salil in the complaint besides their CA Bhavik Panjwani. In the previous charge sheet, ED had named 14 accused including Vaze.
Though, the ED so far has not recorded statements of Deshmukh’s sons about their role in the alleged money laundering. The ED has listed as many as 27 dummy companies under the indirect control of Deshmukh’s family.
These companies were used to launder money as the bribe amount was shown as donations made to Deshmukh’s trust, Sai Shikshan Sanstha by a few Delhi-based firms. The ED has rejected Deshmukh claiming that the money was loans and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) funds received from the companies.
The ED has attached the statements of former chief secretary of Maharashtra Sitaram Kunte and former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh.
Probe on Shiv Sena leader and transport minister Anil Parab continues
The ED probe has yet not concluded as the agency is still investigating whether Maharashtra transport minister Anil Parab laundered money through the transfer and posting of a dozen police officials. Vaze in his statement has claimed that Parab had received crores in bribe for transfers of police officers in Mumbai.
The ED has yet not received from Maharashtra Police the copy of the report prepared by former state intelligence department commissioner Rashmi Shukla. She had recorded telephonic conversations of some influential persons discussing transfer-posting of police officers in exchange for money.