ED freezes bank deposits of West Bengal based group, after raids

15 Jul 2022 , 02:15 PM

As part of a money laundering inquiry, the Enforcement Directorate on Friday announced that it had raided numerous locations belonging to the West Bengal-based Rashmi group of enterprises and frozen bank accounts totalling nearly Rs95 crore.

In a case where the company and its promoters “deliberately mis-declared the facts and mis-utilized the dual freight policy of the Indian Railways to avail wrongful benefits of a lower tariff of freight for transportation of iron ore,” the ED is looking into the loss of Rs73.40 crore to the public exchequer.

According to the statement, searches were conducted on July 13 at 3 locations in West Bengal. The Rashmi group of firms was the subject of a CBI FIR that led to the money laundering case. Rashmi Cement Ltd. and Rashmi Metalik Ltd. are two of these.

The search operation led to the freezing of Rs64.97 crore in the companies’ bank accounts, according to the ED. In addition, it said that cash totaling Rs1.01 crore had been confiscated from the searched area.