ED arrests four in Chhattisgarh coal levy 'scam', money laundering case

A close confidant of bureaucrat Saumya Chaurasia two mining officers and an alleged conman who impersonated as an ED officer are among the four people arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in the coal levy scam of Chhattisgarh an official statement said SaturdayThe ED arrested the four under the antimoney laundering law and a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act PMLA court in Raipur and sent them to the agencys custody till January 30 it saidThe agency had conducted fresh raids in the case on January 13 in Chhattisgarh Delhi and Pune which led to these four arrestsAmong those arrested is Deepesh Taunk who the ED said is a close confidant of Saumya Chaurasia a deputy secretary in the office of Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and a key accused The agency claimed Taunk was knowingly involved in money launderingChaurasia was arrested in the matter last year after the ED raided multiple people in October 2022 and arrested Sameer Vishnoi an IAS officer of the state and some businessmenThe investigation relates to a massive scam in which an illegal levy of Rs 25 was being extorted for every tonne of coal transported in Chhattisgarh by a cartel involving senior bureaucrats businessmen politicians and middlemen the agency has allegedTwo mining officers Sandeep Kumar Nayak posted in Surajpur and Shiv Shankar Nag working in Korba are also among those arrested this week and the agency alleged they knowingly and willingly assisted the syndicate of Suryakant Tiwari alleged main kingpin of the scam in committing extortion and acquisition of the proceeds of crimeAlso read TDS fraud case ED attaches assets worth nearly Rs 70 croreThe fourth to be arrested is Rajesh Chaudhary allegedly a conman who the ED said was cheating people by claiming to work as a middleman to settle cases ED investigation has established that close family members of Sunil Agarwal an accused arrested by ED in this case in October last year and currently in judicial custody were making desperate efforts to secure the release of Sunil AgarwalThis selfacclaimed liaisoner got in touch with the relatives of Sunil Agarwal the ED said in a statement It said it was discovered during Chaudharys interrogation that he had created fake ID cards of being an ED officer and declared himself as an ED employee in several KYC documents submitted to banksThe agency also shared the picture of a fake ID card in which Chaudhary is alleged to have declared himself as Manoj Kumar Assistant Commissioner EDThe ED has made nine arrests till now in the case including these fourIAS officer Vishnoi state administrative service officer Chaurasia coal trader Suryakant Tiwari his uncle Laxmikant Tiwari and another coal businessman Sunil Agrawal were arrested last year The agency has alleged that a grand conspiracy was hatched in the natural resources rich state to perpetrate a coal levy scam in which Rs 540 crore has been extorted over the last two yearsThe money laundering case stems from an Income Tax department complaint that was registered following raids made by the department in June 2022 The agency has called Suryakant Tiwari the main henchman at the groundlevel who deployed his employees in various regions to extort money from coal transporters and industrialists and his team was physically coordinating with lower level government functionaries and coal transporters and representatives of user companiesSince his employees were spread across the state they maintained WhatsApp groups excel sheets of each coal delivery order and the extorted amounts and shared them with Suryakant Tiwari who in turn maintained detailed handwritten diaries of the incoming bribe amounts and their utilisation for purchase of benami lands payment of bribes payments for political expenditure etcThis kind of systemic extortion was not possible without the knowledge and active participation of the state machinery it saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever