NEW DELHI/ CHENNAI: After sustained thinking of Tamil Nadu better education minister K Ponmudy thru Monday night at its Chennai workplace, the ED on Tuesday claimed that the minister and his son Gautham Sigamani, a Lok Sabha MP, had been allegedly involved in laundering thru overseas entities, which include one in Indonesia, from which they won Rs a hundred crore. They had been let off early morning.
The ED claimed Ponmudy, because the then mining minister, had allegedly allotted mining licences to his son and different relatives besides ‘benami’ holders.
“The case includes alleged issuance of purple sand mining licences at 5 places illegally by Ponmudyto his son, household and benami holders. The proceeds obtained from illegal mining had been deposited in benami accounts and layered through multiple transactions and money owed,” ED said in a assertion.
It in addition claimed that the minister sooner or later received foreign places entities — PT Excel Mengindo in Indonesiaand Universal Business Ventures FZE in UAE. “The Indonesian organization became shown to were bought for a nominal amount of Rs forty one. 5 lakh but it changed into later offered for over Rs a hundred crore in 2022. It is suspected that big quantities of coins became transferred thru hawala and infused in purchase of those overseas entities,” the company claimed.
Searches had been conducted by the business enterprise on Monday at seven locations linked to Ponmudy and his son Sigamani. During the quest operations, unaccounted coins amounting to Rs 81. 7 lakh become seized, together with unexplained foreign foreign money, especially British pounds equivalent to almost Rs 13 lakh, from the house of Ponmudy, the agency stated.
“In order to mislead the probe, a claim that the cash belonged to a circle of relatives-owned hospital changed into made, and an try to falsify accounting information to introduce coins become detected with the aid of ED and prevented . . . There is no workable reason behind this unexplained coins seized from the residence of Ponmudy,” ED said.
The business enterprise said its investigation has identified “a path of illegal proceeds derived from those illicit sports, getting used to acquire residences, corporations, and channelling into other investments”. Various incriminating documents had been seized and are currently under analysis, it stated. As pronounced by TOI, ED seized Rs forty two crore in constant deposits, recognized as “direct proceeds of crime”.
Meanwhile, CM MK Stalin reached out to Ponmudy over the telephone, encouraging him to face the ED’s actions bravely and legally. The CM assured Ponmudy of DMK’s “moral, political, and prison aid” to combat what they view as “BJP’s vendetta politics”. Ponmudy holds the location of one of the 5 deputy wellknown secretaries of DMK and ranks sixth within the party hierarchy.
