Court takes cognizance on ED prosecution complaint against Hawala dealer Naresh Jain, issues NBW and summons against others

By Sushil Batra
New Delhi [India], November 3 : A Delhi Court on Monday took cognizance on a Prosecution Complaint (Chargesheet) filed by Enforcement Directorate against Naresh Jain, an alleged Hawala dealer for his involvement in connection with a money laundering case related to international hawala transactions.
Additional Sessions Judge Kiran Gupta of Rohini Court complex which took cognizance on ED prosecution complaint stated, "There is prima facie sufficient incriminating material about the involvement of the accused persons." Thus, cognizance of the offence under section 3 read with section 70 punishable u/S. 4 of PMLA 2002 is taken against all the accused persons, the court said.
The court has directed all the accused including several firms to appear before it on December 2, while issued summons.
The court also issued non-bailable warrant against several accused namely Bimal Kumar Jain, Puneet Jain, Harish Aggarwal and Kuldeep Singh, after Investigation officer placed sufficient material on record that the abovementioned accused are absconding and cannot be served by ordinary process and prays for NBWS against them, accordingly, NBWs be issued against above-mentioned accused, court said.
ED through Advocate Naveen Kumar Matta, special Public prosecutor has filed the prosecution complaint (Chargesheet) u/s 44 r/w section 45 and 70 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002 for the commission of the offence of money laundering as defined in S. 3 and punishable u/s 4 of the PMLA 2002.
Advocate Naveen Kumar Matta submitted that accused Naresh Jain alongwith the co-accused persons and his employees incorporated and operated 450 Indian entities and 104 foreign entities, using identity proofs and documents of dummy shareholders and directors for opening the bank accounts.
Naresh Jain has various offices and properties, which he has purchased from the proceeds of crime. As per the investigation, till date, the proceeds of crime to the tune of more than 565 hundred crore rupees was generated in this case has been detected till date.
The said proceeds of crime were placed as untainted funds in companies controlled by accused Naresh Jain. The layering was done by rotating the proceeds of crime in various companies and then the same was integrated by buying properties, lawyer argued.
According to the investigation agency, the accused formed shell companies and rotated funds in furtherance of the criminal conspiracy to cause loss to the government exchequer by indulging in illegal foreign exchange transactions on the basis of forged and fabricated documents.