ED seeks asset details of Vikas Dubey, others

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 11

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today said it had sought details of properties of killed gangster Vikas Dubey, his relatives and associates from the UP Police. The agency is set to file a money-laundering case and probe his alleged illegal financial transactions and assets.

Sources in the ED said the agency’s zonal office in Lucknow had written to the Kanpur police in this context, seeking copies of all FIRs and chargesheets filed against him and those linked to him. “Some FIRs have been shared, while some more information is being obtained by the agency,” said a senior official

“The dreaded criminal is believed to have invested in property in the UAE and Thailand. He travelled to at least 14 countries over the past three years and might have invested his unaccounted money elsewhere,” the official said. Dubey is also believed to have a dozen “benami” flats in different parts of UP in the names of his family members and associates.

Sources said the ED would soon register a criminal complaint under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to probe proceeds of crime that were allegedly generated by Dubey, his associates and family members and if the money was subsequently used for creation of illegal movable and immovable assets.

The PMLA enables the agency to continue criminal probe against accomplices of Dubey in laundering proceeds of crime and the properties acquired thereof. Section 72 of the Act provides for “continuation of proceedings in the event of death or insolvency”, sources added.

Dubey (47) was shot dead on Friday by a team of the UP Police special task force that claimed that he was trying to flee after the car carrying him from Ujjain overturned on an isolated stretch of the highway on the outskirts of Kanpur city.