A day after the Enforcement Directorate attached assets, including nine immovable properties, worth Rs 26.65 crore of journalist Upendra Rai in a money laundering case, the Law Ministry on Thursday allowed the CBI — probing extortion charges against Rai — to book him under the Official Secrets Act.
According to the ED, Mr. Rai was found involved in the extortion of huge amounts of money from different companies and corporate houses. He allegedly generated and laundered of proceeds of crime worth at least Rs.29.58 crore.
“The funds so generated were projected as received from different companies in the name of consultancy services provided by him. Rai sent cash to different companies and asked them to return it to him through banking channels. These transactions were not legal. To give genuine and legal shape to those transactions, he insisted that those companies entered into consultancy agreements,” said an official.
Rai was arrested on June 8 by the Enforcement Directorate under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) at the Tihar Jail, moments after he secured bail in a Central Bureau of Investigation case related to alleged extortion and dubious financial transactions.
In its FIR, the CBI has alleged that going by the value of transactions of over Rs 1 lakh each during 2017, Rai’s accounts received Rs 79 crore while Rs 78.51 crore was debited from it during the period.
(With agency inputs)
