India News | ED Conducts Raids in Money Laundering Case Against Dentsu India, Textile Company

New Delhi, Dec 12 (PTI) The Enforcement Directorate Thursday said it seized Rs 50 lakh in Indian and foreign currency and gold bars worth Rs 3.4 crore following searches against communications company Dentsu India and textile firm Suumaya Group in a Rs 137 crore alleged funds embezzlement case.

The federal probe agency said in a statement that raids were launched by its Mumbai office on December 10 covering 19 locations in Mumbai, Delhi and Gurugram as part of an ongoing probe in the "Suumaya-Dentsu case".

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The money laundering case stems from an FIR of the Mumbai police (Worli police station) against Dentsu Communications India Private Limited and Suumaya Industries Ltd and its promoters and some others.

"They are accused of conspiring together and embezzling the funds to the tune of Rs 137 crore under the guise of promising future 'Need to Feed' program advantages," the agency alleged.

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There was no immediate response from the two companies to emails sent by PTI in this context.

The ED claimed its probe found that "trade financing" was secured from NBFCs (non-banking financial companies) under the pretext of a so-called 'Need to Feed' program of the Haryana government meant to supply agro products.

Accused persons had not received any contract from the Haryana government and there was no such program ever in existence either, the ED claimed.

The accused entities have, in fact, "never" supplied any agro product material for any such program. However, in order to create a fake impression that it is supplying agro products, the accused "connived" and created "fake" records including fake lorry receipts and fake invoices.

Searches led to the disclosure that the listed entities of Suumaya Group entered into transactions worth Rs 5,000 crore, wherein only 10 per cent of the transactions were "genuine".

"These transactions were done in a circular pattern that led to increase in turnover of involved entities including Dentsu India.

"Investors of the listed group entities of Suumaya Group were mis-represented to show such artificially inflated transactions leading to huge spike in share prices," the ED said.

It added that the turnover of Suumaya Industries Ltd "increased" from Rs 210 crore to Rs 6,700 crore in a span of two years (from FY 2019-20 to FY 2021-22) which affected the share price to increase astronomically from Rs 19 per scrip to Rs 736 during this period.

"The circular transactions also led to exponential increase in turnover of entities bidding for government contracts, startups for valuation purposes and others," it claimed.

The agency said it seized Rs 46 lakh in Indian currency, about Rs 4 lakh of foreign currency in cash, gold bars worth Rs 3.4 crore and "incriminating" documents related to immovable property transactions and some digital devices.

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