NEW DELHI: ED arrested two Chinese nationals in connection with their money laundering investigation Linked to an alleged hawala racket worth an estimated Rs 1000 crore which involved shell or dubious signatures, official sources said Sunday.
The central investigative agency arrested Charlie Peng aka Luo Sang (42) and Carter Leeward under the Money Laundering Prevention Act (PMLA) on January 15. They were presented in a local court here on Saturday that sent them to 14 days of custody, they said.
The ED v. Peng case stems from a Investigation of the Income Tax Department last year and an FIR submitted by the Delhi Police special cell against him in 2018.
Peng’s name had emerged last year in connection with the arrest of two people in Himachal Pradesh who were allegedly following the movement of the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan spiritual leader in his direction.
The Chinese national and some of his alleged associates, including bankers, were searched by the Income Tax Department in August.
Peng, sources had alleged, had a fake Indian passport. Tax officials had claimed that he created a “ring of bogus companies to launder Hawala funds to and from China” in the past two to three years.
Sources had said that its main or exhibition business was the import and export of medical and electronic products and some other items.
Peng, sources said, was arrested by the Delhi Police Special Cell in September 2018 on charges of fraud and forgery and allegedly ran an illegal money changer.
Both the emergency department and the IT department, the sources said, are also investigating allegations that Peng was “bribing” some Tibetans living in Delhi.
In a statement dated August last year, the CBDT it had stated, without identifying the entities involved, that its searches were based on “credible contributions that some Chinese persons and their Indian associates were involved in money laundering and hawala transactions through a number of shell entities.”
It had said that “the subsidiary of the Chinese company and its related concerns have taken over bogus advances of Rs 100 million from shell entities to open retail showroom businesses in India.”
“The search action revealed that at the urging of Chinese individuals, more than 40 bank accounts were created in various fictitious entities, entering credits of more than Rs 1 billion during the period,” the CBDT said.
“As a result of the search action, documents have been found incriminating hawala transactions and money laundering with the active participation of bank employees and public accountants,” he said.
Evidence of foreign hawala transactions involving Hong Kong and US dollars has also been discovered, the CBDT said.
The DE is investigating similar charges against Lee, they said.
On Video: ED Arrests 2 Chinese Citizens In Money Laundering Case
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