As ED probe against Neeraj Singh expands, CBI remains inconspicuously silent

New Delhi: The ED's probe in the money-laundering case against senior Income Tax Commissioner Neeraj Singh, which involves links to chit fund group Rose Valley, is expanding after the ED has conducted several searches and collected various documents that point towards a web of shell companies, that could have been used to launder alleged ill-gotten wealth of Singh and other senior public officials.

Meanwhile, the CBI, which also probing the Rs 15,000 crore Rose Valley case, has remained inconspicuously silent in pursuing this line of enquiry with respect to its investigation in the chit fund case.

Earlier, the probe by local police and ED had pointed to the links between Rose Valley Chairman Gautam Kundu and Singh.

The financial probe agency had in July this year initiated a money-laundering probe against Singh based on a Kolkata Police FIR that accused him of using a Kolkata-based accountant named Govind Agarwal to launder large sums of seemingly tainted earnings.

From Agarwal's premises, police had found documents that purportedly showed Singh travelling to Port Blair with Kundu and his wife Shubhra Kundu to strike a land deal with the group there, according to one of Agarwal's earlier statements to the police.

According to the anti-fraud section of the city police, some of Singh's ill-gotten wealth was allegedly pumped into the chit fund company, in addition to a slew of shell companies.

While sources in the know have told the Millennium Post that the CBI is looking into the role of some IRS officers in the Rose Valley case, it is yet to confirm whether Neeraj Singh is under their scanner.

Police also conducted searches at Agarwal's premises in 2017, resulting in the seizure of 11 Aadhar Cards, 18 Drivers' Licenses and 186 PAN Cards along with 98 rubber stamps - all with different company names. Other than these, city cops also recovered special USB Trust Keys which have encryption that can be decoded by only one person. One of these Trust Keys bore the name Bina Agarwal, a director in a company called Tobu Engineering.

And according to the seizure list from Agarwal's offices in Kolkata, police had also found receipts of gold purchased by Tobu Engineering from one HM Diwan Jewellers.

Interestingly, in an investigation into some alleged spurious commission payments to this company, an Income Tax Inspector had in 2007, essentially concluded that the Kolkata-based Tobu Engineering was, in fact, a paper company.

The Assessing Officer in the case had visited the registered office of Tobu Engineering at Mangoe Lane in Kolkata and found no physical signs of the company ever having existed at that location. He had prepared a report which said that no one in the building, including its owner or caretaker, recognised "any such party as Tobu Engineering".

The ED had also a few weeks ago raided premises of Govind Agarwal in Kolkata from where officials seized documents pointing towards at least 40 companies that were suspected to be shell companies, being used to launder money, according to a source in the know.

The recoveries included unexplained property papers, some of which were registered to the above-mentioned companies. Papers relating to share investments made under different people's names and a horde of other documents were recovered from the raids, including evidence of regular contact with several senior government officials.

The ED had confronted Agarwal with documents found at his premises and he has confirmed having paid for travel and other expenses of Singh – the nephew of a Union Minister in the current government - and several other senior public officials, including the likes of a former Central Vigilance Commissioner, a highly placed source said.

After the raids at Agarwal's premises, the ED recently also raided premises belonging to one Anup Killa along with simultaneous search operations at the residential addresses of Neeraj Singh across the country.

A senior official in the know said that raids were conducted at Killa's official premises in Kolkata, where several shell companies linked to Singh and Agarwal had registered addresses. ED sleuths had raided the first and second floors of 20A British India Street, the address where both Lilac Suppliers Pvt Ltd and Transways Wine Pvt Ltd are registered.

Interestingly, Killa is a director in both the companies, along with Essencia Beverages Pvt Ltd - a company also registered at the same address. In fact, records list Killa and his associate Sunil Kumar Agarwalla as common directors in at least four Kolkata-based companies, of which two are registered in the same building.

In fact, local police had booked Lilac Suppliers Pvt Ltd, the company raided by ED officials recently, for propping up shell/paper companies to launder illegally acquired wealth. According to police, no one in the building could recognise a company called Lilac Suppliers, identify the directors of the concern or describe what the company did.

According to a senior ED official, Agarwal had purportedly revealed that this network of shell companies was used to launder allegedly tainted earnings of Singh and other senior public officials and benefitted the likes of a former CBI Joint Director, who was in charge of the chit fund probe at the time.