Bengal ration scam: ED tracks fictitious transaction through Dubai-based bank

Enforcement Directorate (ED) probing the ration distribution case in West Bengal has been able to track a fictitious transaction made in dollars through a Dubai-based license-expired corporate entity linked to the arrested Trinamool Congress leader, Shankar Adhya.

Sources said this transaction was made in October 2019 just a few months before the license of the said corporate entity expired.

ED sleuths, sources added, have strong hunch that the corporate entity was floated only for the specific purpose of diverting the proceeds of the ration distribution case in West Bengal.

Adhya was arrested on the late night of January 5 from his residence at Bangaon in North 24 Parganas district after the ED sleuths conducted a marathon raid and search operation there.

Initially, sources said, during the interrogation the arrested ruling party leaders claimed before the central agency sleuths that Adhya floated the Dubai- based company with the purpose of entering into export business.

However, sources said, the ED sleuths on cross-checking found the only business where the company’s name surfaced was in relation to some fictitious transactions made in foreign currencies through the Dubai- based bank account.

That is where the ED sleuths became quite sure that the said corporate entity was basically a shell company floated for a limited period with the purpose of diverting the scam proceeds externally.

Since the beginning of investigations in various cases of money laundering in West Bengal, the ED sleuths have noted the prevalence of the use of shell companies for the purpose of fund diversion. The directors of such entities are mainly the close relatives or associates of scam masterminds, some of whom are already behind the bars.