Following the paper trail
According to the ED, Vaze who is lodged in Taloja jail in connection with his role in the Antilia bomb scare and Hiran murder case, disclosed that he had collected ₹4.7 crore from bar owners for “smooth functioning of bars” and handed the money to Shinde in two installments in January and February 2021.
“On behalf of 60 bar owners, Shri Jaya Poojari and Shri Mahesh Shetty, bar owner/ manager had paid ₹40 lakh to Sachin Vaze in December 2020 as ‘good luck’ money,” ED had said in one of its the remand applications. Subsequent to Vaze’s meetings with bar owners, “in January and February 2021, orchestra bar owners from Zone I to Zone VII of Mumbai police paid sum of ₹1.64 crore to Vaze and orchestra bars owners from Zone VIII to Zone XII paid him ₹2.66 crore during this period.”
ED claimed that while collecting money from bar owners, Vaze told them that part of the money was to go to “No.1”, whom ED officials suspect referred to the then home minister. The agency also claimed that Deshmukh had used shell companies to route the money as donations to an educational trust headed by Deshmukh which runs engineering and polytechnic colleges in Nagpur.
The money, according to ED, was first sent to a Delhi-based sibling duo, known as the Jain brothers who reportedly created shell companies to house cash received as donations to Nagpurbased Shri Sai Shikshan Sansthan, a trust controlled by Deshmukh and his family. Both Deshmukh’s son, Hrishikesh and personal assistant, Shinde are associated with the trust.
The ED contended that they identified 24 private entities controlled by Deshmukh family -directly and indirectly -- and found that huge sums of money had moved among them without any rationale.
“From the analysis of the bank accounts of these companies, it is clear that there is no rationale for the transfers and can thus be said that these series of transactions were meant for inflating balance sheets and layering of money from one company to other,” ED had said in the remand application submitted to the special PMLA court.
In July, the anti-money laundering agency provisionally attached Deshmukh’s properties worth ₹4.20 crore, including the NCP leader’s flat at Worli valued at about ₹1.54 crore and 25 land parcels Dhutum village in Uran-held in the name of Deshmukh’s wife Aarti and a company named Premier Port Links Pvt Ltd – with a book value of ₹2.67 crore.
According to ED officers, Deshmukh acquired 50% ownership in M/s Premier Port Links Pvt Ltd including its assets, i.e. land and shops, “totally valued at approximately ₹5.34 crore (book value) by merely paying ₹17.95 lakh, that too after a substantial gap.”
ED has issued summons to Deshmukh and Hrishikesh and claimed that the father-son duo has not honoured any of the summons yet. Deshmukh’s lawyer, Kamlesh Ghumre however visited the agency’s office as Deshmukh’s representative.