Chhattisgarh coal levy scam: ED attaches assets of IAS officer, 2 MLAs

“During the investigations, direct evidence of financial linkages of the above (accused) persons with Suryakant Tiwari were established and assets created by layering of the proceeds of crime or equivalent assets were identified for attachment proceedings into a money laundering case,” the spokesperson said.

The agency had launched a probe into the case in October 2022 after it raided another IAS officer, Sameer Vishnoi, and some businessmen. It later arrested them along with Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel’s then deputy secretary Saumya Chaurasia. The ED had claimed that officials and politicians in the state were involved in an illegal levy on coal transportation which was generating Rs 2-3 crore per day.

Earlier, the agency had attached properties worth Rs 170 crore belonging to Suryakant Tiwari, Sameer Vishnoi, Saumya Chaurasia, Sunil Agarwal and others. Total attachment in this case has reached Rs 221.5 crore.

“The ED has initiated a money laundering investigation based on the FIR lodged on the complaint of the income tax department. Searches have been conducted at more than 145 premises and so far nine persons have been arrested under PMLA. All of them are in judicial custody,” the ED spokesperson said, adding that the investigation has “established that proceeds of crime worth Rs 540 crore were acquired in this extortion racket”.

According to the ED, those named in the probe were part of a massive scam in which an illegal levy of Rs 25 per tonne was allegedly being extorted by a cartel involving senior bureaucrats, businessmen, politicians and middlemen. The proceeds of the crime, the ED alleged, were being used for “investing in benami assets, bribing officials to influence senior officers and also used by or on behalf of political executives of the state”.