Mumbai official under probe has assets ‘208% more than his income’: Anti Corruption Bureau

This came after sleuths from the Income Tax (I-T) Department on July 7 apprehended Rasal with Rs 65.80 lakh of alleged unaccounted cash at the city airport, while he was travelling to Delhi on an Air India flight.

According to a source, ACB sleuths have recovered a diary noting from a suburban jeweller, who is one of the three businessmen who allegedly helped Rasal launder his money. The noting, written in a ‘coded-language’, pertains to the details of the alleged transactions between Rasal and the jeweller, amounting to Rs 1.6 crore.

“One of the three persons allegedly approached by Rasal to round trip his funds is a Vile-Parle based jeweller. We have recovered a diary from him in which he has mentioned details of his transactions with Rasal in coded language. We have cracked the code,” said an official.  The police have also questioned a lottery shop owner from whom Rasal allegedly bought a lottery ticket and “won” Rs 2.2 crore, sources add.

“He claims to have won a lottery of Rs 2.2 crore, but our investigations have revealed that he did not win any lottery. He just colluded with the lottery shop owner, who, in lieu of a payment, declared him the lottery winner to help him launder his black money,” said the officer.

The sleuths have also questioned a third businessmen who deals in cash transactions and who allegedly helped Rasal launder his “black money”. “He employed a simple modus operandi of using businessmen dealing in cash transactions to channel his black money. This helped him evade scrutiny by I-T authorities,” claimed the official.
Another senior official told The Indian Express that Rasal has nine properties, including two in Mumbai and the others in Kolhapur, Pune and Talegaon. “These properties are benami and a thorough probe into their purchase and title is underway,” alleged the official.

Rasal was supervising operations of the Kalamboli Steel market yard — a wholesale market for steel and iron. He was due for promotion to IAS cadre. “This is a DPA case and therefore we won’t probe if he misused his position. Our probe will only concentrate on gathering evidence to prove that his assets and the cash found with him are 208 per cent more than his known sources of income,” said the official.

Maharashtra ACB acting Director General of Police Vivek Phansalkar confirmed the developments and said that investigations are underway. Calls and text messages sent to Rasal remained unanswered.