Demonetisation: ED files first chargesheet involving Axis bank staff
New Delhi, February 3
The Enforcement Directorate has formally brought charges in the first of several suspected cases of illegal money conversion that occurred after the central government announced that it was making old high value banknotes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 invalid in November.
The agency submitted its charge sheet — called prosecution complaint in the Enforcement Directorate (ED) parlance — before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court on Thursday accusing two people —Axis Bank’s Vineet Gupta, who is the head of the Kashmere Gate branch of the bank and Shobhit Sinha, the operations head of the branch — for helping Rajeev S Kushwaha deposit Rs 40 crore of old notes for a big commission and illegally converting them into legal tender.
Delhi Police were first alerted to suspicious transactions after they found three people with old notes worth Rs 3.7 crore in a queue in front of the bank in November last year.
All three were arrested in December after the ED brought charges of corruption on them.
They are currently in judicial custody.
The ED claims the three would "deposit money after banking hours at around 6:00 pm. The money deposited would be transferred to accounts of various companies within minutes through Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS). No Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) were filed by the bank officials and the deposits were made without authorisation, bypassing banking formalities".
"It all started when following demonetisation (on November 8, 2016) people with illegal money began converting their old currency notes into gold/legal tender. These bullion traders wanted payments in RTGS/transfer of money through banking channel for the sale of gold as old currency was not accepted.”
"Some of such elements contacted Kushwaha and his associates for this purpose. Kushwaha was having various fictitious companies/firms namely Ms Himalaya International, Ms RD Trader and Ms Beagle Marketing and Ms Sunrise Trading."
"They (Kushwaha and others) contacted Gupta and Sinha to get special facilities to put the old currency into the banking system through their fictitious/shell companies having current account in Kashmere Gate branch by offering huge commission."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi made old banknotes invalid on November 8, 2016. — PTI
