2 more associates of Sekar Reddy arrested

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) investigation wing in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday evening arrested two persons involved in exchange of old notes to new currency notes of about Rs 6 crores to J Sekar Reddy, who was arrested by CBI recently for possessing Rs 34 crores of new denominations.

The ED said it has arrested the two persons for alleged illegal exchange of old notes "in connivance with" sand-mining baron Sekar Reddy as part of its money laundering probe post demonetisation.

The agency has identified the two as Mahavir Hirani and Ashok Jain and said they were arrested under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Investigations revealed that, using few persons like Mahavir and Ashok in Chennai, about Rs 6 to Rs 7 crores were obtained by Sekar Reddy, through Parasmal Lodha, who was earlier arrested by ED.

Search of the premises of Ashok by Income Tax officials resulted in seizure of Rs 10 crores of old currencies and about 6.5 kgs of Gold.

Further verification revealed that Mahavir and Ashok Jain were involved in exchange of old currencies to new currencies on commission basis, after demonitisation of old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currencies.

The I-T department has made the biggest detection of alleged unaccounted income of over Rs 142 crore in this case with the seizure of Rs 34 crore in new notes. Soon, Reddy and two of his associates were arrested.