Suspended KAS officer Naik sings like a canary

BENGALURU: Suspended KAS officer and Special Land Acquisition Officer, Bheema Naik, who is in the CID custody in connection with his driver’s suicide case, has reportedly confessed to have converted black money into white for former minister G. Janardhan Reddy. However, he has reportedly denied threatening his car driver, Ramesh.

Sources in the CID said that the accused official revealed to the interrogators that he had helped Reddy arrange funds for the wedding of his daughter. “Though he has stated that he helped in converting the money, he has denied that the amount was to the tune of Rs 100 crore, as mentioned by Ramesh in his suicide note. However, our focus of investigation is just to know whether the accused abetted his driver’s suicide and the amount converted is not of much importance,” an official said. Further, Naik has reportedly revealed that he had a financial dispute with Ramesh, but denied threatening to kill him.

Jayachandra case: ED arrests seven more
Unearthing a racket involved in the illegal conversion of demonetised currency notes, the Enforcement Directorate has arrested seven alleged middlemen and seized Rs 91.94 lakh in new currency in Karnataka, as part of its money laundering probe.

Officials said the agency arrested the accused, including the brother-in-law of a state government official, under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The seized cash, the agency said, was in the form of Rs 2,000 notes. The case emerges from a December 1 seizure made by the Income Tax department here of Rs 5.7 crore in Rs 2,000 notes.

The ED had booked a money laundering case against a number of people, including S.C. Jayachandra, a Project Officer of State Highway Development Project, and others based on a CBI FIR in the case. Jayachandra was later arrested by the ED.

“Based on his (Jayachandra) revelation during the course of investigation, seven people, including G Prashanth, brother-in-law of Jayachandra, who were supplying new currency in exchange of demonetised notes have been arrested and Rs 91,94,000 (4,597 notes of Rs 2000) has been seized,” the agency said in a statement.

The modus operandi adopted by the alleged middlemen, officials said, was unearthed after ED officials launched a special operation and themselves posed as ‘customers’ looking to get old currency exchanged illegally after paying commission to the said middlemen.

The accused had set up a ‘systematic’ network for supplying new currency notes in exchange of old/demonetised currency to various persons who had hoarded demonetised currencies.

The customers could get their notes exchanged by paying 20-35 per cent commission. “The said accused had supplied new currencies on many earlier occasions to Jayachandra through Prasanth and they fell into trap while making one such effort to supply new currency on December 4. The said new currencies were sourced from various parts of Karnataka,” the agency said.

The role of a few bank officials and entry operators is also under the scanner, they said. Officials said the agency suspects that there is a chain of middlemen involved in converting black money into white.