MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday summoned former state home minister Anil Deshmukh for questioning in connection with its probe into the alleged money laundering case, but Deshmukh did not turn up and sought more time.
Late on Friday, the probe agency arrested Deshmukh’s private secretary Sanjeev Palande and personal assistant Kundan Shinde (as reported in TOI’s late edition) and a special court remanded them in ED custody till July 1.
In the remand application, the agency said that of the money collected from orchestra bars by dismissed cop Sachin Waze allegedly on Deshmukh’s instructions, Rs 4.7 crore was transferred to the former minister’s Nagpur- based educational trust by his son, who routed it via two hawala operators and showed it as donation.
The ED further claimed that Palande and Shinde had played an active role in the money laundering.
It said that Palande had coordinated with Waze, DCP Raju Bhujbal and ACP Sanjay Patil in allegedly collecting money from orchestra bar owners in Mumbai and Shinde had received the funds.
In his statement to the ED, Waze said he had collected Rs 4.7 crore between December 2020 and February 2021 (during the period the government had relaxed Covid lockdown conditions, allowing bars to operate), and handed over the money to Shinde in two instalments.
The remand application has mentioned diversion of funds collected from the bar owners by Waze into the account of Shri Sai Shikshan Sanstha through a Delhi-based hawala operator.
Deshmukh is the president of the trust and his two sons, Salil and Hrishikesh, are trustees.
The ED has recorded statements of prominent bar owners in the city who had allegedly collected money from other bar owners known to them for the smooth functioning of their business.
They said that in December, 60 orchestra bar owners paid Rs 40 lakh to Waze as “good luck” money and then between January and February all the bar owners had collectively contributed Rs 4.3 crore for Waze, who handed over the entire collection to Deshmukh’s staff.
Waze had told the bar owners that the collected money will go to “Number 1” and the crime branch and social service branch of Mumbai police, the remand application said.
The ED’s remand plea said Surendra and Virendra Jain, Delhi-based book entry operators, had said that Hrishikesh, through his associate, had approached them requesting an arrangement to take cash from him and transfer the amount to his trust through regular banking transactions as donations.
It further said the cash collected from bar owners in Mumbai was transferred to the Jain brothers through a hawala channel who used several Delhi-based paper companies to layer the funds before transferring that into account of the trust.
An associate of Hrishikesh, who connected him to the Jain brothers, has also confessed to the entire transaction, the agency said.
Meanwhile, Deshmukh on Saturday wrote to the ED expressing his inability to present himself for questioning.
He said, “I am sanguine to expose the falsity, hollowness and lack of substance in the allegation levelled against me.” It is learned that the ED may summon Deshmukh for questioning again next week.
It had recorded his partial statement at his residence in Worli on Friday after searching the premises along with his two other residences in Mumbai and Nagpur.
In their statements to the ED, Bhujbal and Patil said they had instructions from the then home minister’s office to collect Rs 100 crore from orchestra bar owners and others with the help of Waze for Deshmukh.
The ED also recorded the statement of Waze in Taloja jail on June 19, where he said that he got instruction directly from Deshmukh at his official bungalow to collect Rs 3 lakh every month from each of the bar owners in the city.