ED arrests Markfed ex-MD in milling ‘scam’
The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday arrested former Chhattisgarh MARKFED managing director Manoj Soni in a money laundering case linked to an alleged rice milling scam worth ¥175 crore, o§cial sources said.
Mr. Soni was taken into custody and produced before a Special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Raipur where the agency will seek his custody for interrogation.
The federal agency had last year said in a statement that ¥175 crore bribes were generated through this alleged scam for the “benet of higher powers”.
It last raided Mr. Soni, some o§ce-bearers of the State Rice Millers Association, including treasurer Roshan Chandrakar, district marketing o§cers and a few rice millers in October last year as part of a custom rice milling special incentive ‘scam’ in the State.
The agency had earlier said in a statement that its case stems from a complaint led by the Income Tax department before a court in Raipur where the IT department had alleged that the o§ce-bearers of the Chhattisgarh Rice Millers Association “colluded” with o§cers of the State Marketing Federation Ltd (MARKFED) and “hatched a conspiracy to misuse the special incentive where ¥40 per quintal of paddy was paid by the State government to rice millers for custom milling of rice”.
The ED said this amount was “exorbitantly” increased to ¥120 per quintal and was paid in two instalments of ¥60 each. “The o§ce-bearers of the Association led by treasurer Roshan Chandrakar, in connivance with Mr. Soni, started collecting kickbacks amount of ¥20 per instalment per quintal from the rice millers,” the ED found.