NEW DELHI: A Special Chennai Court on Wednesday awarded four years rigorous imprisonment to a person, Haroon Rasheed in connection with a Prevention of Money Laundering case.
The court while awarding the sentence also slapped a fine of Rs six lakh on him for committing the offence. If he fails to pay, the accused will have to remain two more years in jail.
Rasheed was arrested in March 2018 for laundering Rs 5.41 crore in two different names through four current accounts maintained in different banks during February-November, 2014.
He was sending and receiving money through different entities on bogus bills and names. The money collected by him was nothing but the proceeds of crime.
"The case had cross border implications and therefore, the Special Court, High Court as well as the Supreme Court, had consistently taken the stand not to grant bail to the accused considering the seriousness of its implication to the financial system and the sovereignty of the nation, " said the ED official.
The official said that the accused is a part of a gang of people operating in complete anonymity in sending the proceeds of crime under the guise of permissible merchandise imports, without making corresponding imports into the Domestic Tariff Area (DTA), by using the Forged Import Documents i.e., Bills of Entry, as genuine.
"There are fifty seven such business entities involved in this scam in the matter of sending Rs 3500 crore as per our ECIR. Our case was initiated based on the FIR under various Sections of IPC and section 13(2) r/w Section 13(1)(d) of The Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 registered by CBI, " the ED official said.