The Enforcement Directorate (ED) probing the multi-crore school recruitment case in West Bengal has been able to track the blacklisted corporate entities that purchased shares of companies linked to an accused in the scam, Sujay Krishna Bhadra a.k.a. Kalighater Kaku (uncle of Kalighat).
Sources said that one of the four companies linked to Bhadra issued shares for sale at face value of Rs 440 per share. Later it was revealed that those shares were purchased by some other corporate entities, which were also controlled by Bhadra and were blacklisted at a later stage by the competent authorities.
Sources said that the investigating officials doubt that the entire process of first issuing shares by one company and subsequently being purchased by another set of companies, with both the share- issuing and share-purchasing entities having links to Bhadra, indicates that the proceeds of the school recruitment case had been diverted through this process.
On June 14, the ED counsel Phiroze Edulji informed a special court of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata that the involvement of Bhadra and four companies liked to him in the school recruitment case is a classic case of money laundering, where all the money came through the hawala route and part of the proceeds was invested in real estate business.
Recently the ED sleuths have also come across a personal diary of Bhadra which are full coded scribbles.
The central agency sleuths doubt that these coded scribbles are actually details of the receipts of the alleged scam proceeds as well as the names of the beneficiaries in the case.
ED sources also believe that the details of the Hawala transactions made in the school recruitment case are also hidden in those coded scribbles.
Meanwhile, the ED sleuths have secured some specific clues on how proceeds of the alleged scam were invested and then diverted through the Hawala route through different corporate entities.
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