Money-laundering case filed against Chinese national

nNEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a money laundering case against Chinese national Luo Sang, who was living in India under the pseudonym Charlie Peng and is involved in alleged cross-border money laundering worth at least ~1,000 crore using shell companies and the hawala route (an informal and illegal way of transferring money across geographies) , officials familiar with the development said on Monday.

The officials, who asked not to be identified, said that a case had been registered against Peng under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on the basis of the Income Tax (I-T) department’s action and a Delhi Police probe.

The agency will soon summon for questioning Peng and his associates including hawala dealers, chartered accountants and bank officials.

Investigations by multiple agencies, including the I-T department, Delhi Police and central intelligence agencies, have so far revealed that Peng’s alleged money laundering activities are related to gathering information in India, one of the officials said.

“We have information that Peng was sending packets carrying ~2 to ~3 lakh to certain individuals in Tibetan settlements in Delhi ,” this person added.

Investigations by the I-T department have revealed that certain Chinese companies under the scanner were issuing fake purchase orders for which bogus bills were raised by smaller Chinese companies having businesses in India.

The I-T department acted against Peng (41) on August 11 and 12 on specific intelligence inputs.

HT could not speak to Peng, who is under detention. It wasn’t immediately clear whether he has legal representation.

nNEW DELHI India on Monday sought investments from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in key sectors such as infrastructure, highways, ports, airports, renewable energy and defence as the two sides discussed a joint strategy to offset the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The matters came up during a virtual meeting of the India-uae joint commission on trade, economic and technical cooperation, which was co-chaired by external

:

affairs minister S Jaishankar and his UAE counterpart Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

“The Indian side invited further investments from [the] UAE in key sectors of the Indian economy such as infrastructure including logistics, food parks, highways, ports, airports, renewable energy and defence,” said a statement from the external affairs ministry.

The two sides also assessed their cooperation over the past few months in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic , the statement added.