New Delhi, (Samajweekly) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday said that it attached 11 immovable assets in the form of flats, residential houses, agricultural land and crypto currency valued at Rs 3.24 crore belonging to Shantanu Gupta, Shashank Gupta, Abdul Wahab Yasir, Mohit Haldar, Puneet Dubey, and others in connection with its probe against Hatsh Telecom and others.
The ED said that it attached properties under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 of the accused located at various places in Uttar Pradesh.
The ED case is based on the case registered by Narcotics Control Bureau, Lucknow Zonal Unit against Hatsh Telecom and others.
During the ED probe it was revealed that Shantanu Gupta, Shashank Gupta, Yasir, Haldar, Dubey, and others were running a narcotics business through a call centre in Lucknow in the guise of software related businesses through nine bogus companies — Epitome Telecommunications Pvt.Ltd, Hatsh Telecom Private Ltd, Jeo Pardy Telecom Pvt. Ltd., Morpheus Telecom Pvt. Ltd, Sky Dreams Telecomm. Pvt. Ltd., Sky High Telecommunication, CG Telecallers Private Ltd, YS Telecom Private Ltd and 99 Style Retail Pvt. Ltd, the agency said.
“Through the call centre they used call their customers based in US and get orders of psychotropic substances which were then forwarded to Sagar Asthana and Dubey, who later ship them as parcels through Indian Post to their US based clients,” the ED said.
The ED probe has so far revealed that all the attached properties were acquired through the proceeds of the crime derived from trafficking of narcotics and psychotropic substances to US during the crime period i.e. between 2013 and 2017.
“Through this modus the above companies received a total of Rs 23.67 crore in around 43 bank accounts. These funds were immediately siphoned off by the directors of these companies in order to acquire properties at various locations,” it added.
