New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate attached assets worth Rs 54.24 crore from Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative (IFFCO) managing director Udai Shankar Aswathi on Wednesday. The assets, the agency attached in connection with a money laundering case, were in the form of mutual funds, equity shares, bonds, bank balances etc., IANS reported.
Earlier, the probe agency had attached immovable and movable assets worth Rs 100 crore in the case. Now, the total attachment has reached Rs 154.24 crore worth of assets so far.
The ED probe on the matter was on the basis of a CBI FIR lodged, naming Udai Shanker Awasthi, MD IFFCO, Pankaj Jain, promoter of Jyoti Trading Corporation and Rare Earth Group, Dubai, Amarendra Dhari Singh and others. The accused were charged with alleged hatching of a criminal conspiracy, cheating and criminal misconduct.
According to the ED findings, Awasthi and co-accused in IFFCO generated assets through their crime and layered them through distinct entities. A part of the proceeds of crime was then transferred to entities managed by them, ED informed.
In 2021, the central agency filed a prosecution complaint (charge sheet) against six of the accused.
A court had held all of the accused were involved in the crime knowingly and assisted in the acquisition of the proceeds of the crime.