Disproportionate assets: ED starts scanning benami assets, firms of IRS officer
The accused was working as an additional commissioner of customs in Lucknow, and the ED arrested him after the agency searched his premises, including in Mumbai. The agency is also verifying transactions related to cash deposits, purchase of land and flow/trail of proceeds of crime in the case, sources said.
Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has started scanning benami assets, firms and certain irregularities allegedly linked to the finances of a former Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, Sachin Sawant, who was arrested in June in a disproportionate assets case.
The term benami refers to something that is held, done, or transacted under someone else’s name to hide actual ownership.
“ED is scanning benami properties in the case, and details from the Registrar of Companies will be considered with respect to certain deeds. The agency is also verifying if a BMW car was allegedly purchased by the IRS officer in the name of a friend,” agency sources said.
The accused was working as an additional commissioner of customs in Lucknow, and the ED arrested him after the agency searched his premises, including in Mumbai.
The agency is also verifying transactions related to cash deposits, purchase of land and flow/trail of proceeds of crime in the case, sources said. “The agency has also recorded the statements of his relatives and other witnesses. The accused’s father, when asked about benami companies in his name, expressed ignorance about them. The probe also revealed that the wife of the accused, who is a housewife, was shown to be drawing a salary,” sources added.
ED’s money laundering case against Sawant is based on a case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in June 2022 on charges of allegedly amassing disproportionate assets. The CBI probe investigated allegations that the accused had amassed huge assets in his name and those of his family members (his wife and his parents), and incurred huge expenditures, which were disproportionate to their legal sources of income by around ₹2.45 crore.
According to the CBI, the sum of ₹2.45 crore was allegedly disproportionate to the tune of 204% of Sawant and his family’s known and legal sources of income from January 12, 2011, to August 31, 2020. The CBI alleged that the assets under the scanner were worth ₹1.42 lakh, at the beginning of the check period but escalated to ₹2.07 crore at the end of it.
Further, the income during the check period was ₹1.2 crore, while the expenditure was to the tune of ₹1.6 crore, and the likely savings were around ₹39.87 lakh, CBI sources said.
During the ED’s money laundering investigation, it was revealed that alleged cash deposits of around ₹1.25 crore were made from unexplained sources in the personal bank accounts of Sawant’s family members and in the bank account of a dummy company wherein his father and another relative were directors, ED sources said.
