CA with links to firm associated with Lalu’s daughter arrested

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested a chartered accountant on Monday in connection with its probe into a ₹8,000-crore laundering racket involving two Delhi-based businessmen and political entities.

The CA, Rajesh Kumar Agrawal, is also associated with transactions involving a firm, allegedly linked to RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s daughter, Misa Bharti, which is under scanner for suspected tax evasion, said officials.

Agrawal was arrested for allegedly being instrumental in providing accommodation entries (illegal funds) to launder the funds for businessmen brothers Virendra and Surendra Jain. The agency has, however, now expanded its probe and has brought all his dealings under the scanner.

“Agrawal has played a pivotal role in the transactions between Jain brothers and Ms Jagat Projects Limited. He is also associated with some transactions involving Ms Mishail Packers and Printers Private Limited,” the agency said in a statement.

The firm Mishail, allegedly linked to Misa Bharti, who is also an MP, and close to two dozen entities linked to it are under scanner of the I-T department in a ₹1,000-crore dubious land deal case and the taxman had conducted multiple raids in this connection sometime back in and around the national capital.

The officials claimed the CA was “not cooperating” in the probe and he will be subjected to sustained interrogation once they obtain his custody.

The company Jagat Projects, it said, converted unaccounted money to the tune of ₹62.20 crore into “apparently legitimate transactions by way of share subscription through 26 shell companies controlled by Jain brothers.”

ED said the Jain brothers had been “maintaining” a ledger account in the name of Agrawal. It claimed that he had undertaken illegal transactions of “over ₹39 crore in 2009-10 alone.”

THE OFFICIALS CLAIMED THE CA WAS ‘NOT COOPERATING’ IN THE PROBE AND HE WILL BE SUBJECTED TO SUSTAINED INTERROGATION