TV
Around 505 Benami bank accounts were found during a raid carried out on December 18 by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) zonal office in Bhubaneswar on Bharat Integrated Social Welfare Agency (BISWA), an NGO linked to Opposition BJD chief whip Pramila Mallik’s brother.
This was informed by ED through a press release issued in this regard on Friday.
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ED sleuths conducted search operations at four different locations in Odisha and New Delhi under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 in connection with a detailed probe underway against BISWA under the Act.
An amount of more than Rs 72 Lakh lying in these 505 different bank accounts has been frozen and shares worth Rs 10 Lakh have been recovered and seized along with a number of incriminating documents like sale deeds, cheque books, and digital devices.
The NGO firm was found involved in a bank loan fraud amounting to more than Rs 200 Crore. During the search, suspected 505 Benami accounts of individuals and self-help groups (SHGs) and their related signed and unsigned cheque books were recovered, the ED source said.
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The ED initiated a probe under the provisions of PMLA, 2002 on the basis of FIRs registered with EOW, Odisha Police, and CBI. Investigation under PMLA revealed that BISWA was being run by Khirod Chandra Mallik (Pramila Mallik’s brother).
In the guise of financing self-help groups (SHGs) and joint liability firms (JLFs), Khirod misutilised the fund and also started accepting deposits from the public, which was not allowed as per Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines.
