Gaurav Dalmia paid Rs 12 crore to conman Sherpuria: ED’s complaint against Sherpuria

“In addition…a sum of Rs 6 crore (was) received in cash by Sanjay Prakash Rai from Gaurav Dalmia which were subsequently layered and placed in the bank accounts of his sons Yash Sanjayprakash Rai and Sujal Sanjayprakash Rai in the form of accommodation entries from certain Delhi based jewellers in the garb of sale of old jewellery,” it added.

The cases in which Dalmia sought help from Sherpuria pertained to a real estate project he was developing in Ghaziabad in partnership with another company and an alleged forex violations case, sources said.

When contacted, a Dalmia spokesperson said: “There is no case against the Dalmia Group by the Enforcement Directorate, so we have not sought any help from Mr Sanjay Sherpuria. We believe a chargesheet has been filed against Sanjay Sherpuria who has extorted money from various business people. We are fully cooperating and are assisting the Enforcement Directorate in the investigation of offences committed by Mr Sanjay Sherpuria. We have full faith in the system.”

The ED prosecution complaint, equivalent to a chargesheet, was filed by the agency in a special court July 28. The court took cognizance of the complaint Monday. The agency has filed another prosecution complaint against Sherpuria’s associate Mohammed Kashif.

Sherpuria was arrested by UP STF in April for fraudulently “misusing” the PM’s name for personal gain and allegedly faking access to the PMO and Cabinet Ministers to allegedly dupe businessmen. The UP STF action had been taken on a reference from ED which first began probing him.

The ED conducted search operations at 42 locations in New Delhi, Gurugram, Faridabad, Noida, Ghazipur, Pune and Gandhidham. Rai was arrested by ED and was in ED custody from June 3 to June 16.

According to ED, its probe has revealed that Sherpuria cheated several other persons and duped them to the tune of over Rs 2.51 crore by portraying himself close to VIPs.

Earlier, ED had frozen or attached 18 bank accounts with a balance of Rs 13.96 crore and a Mercedes car worth Rs 58.05 lakh in the name of accused, his family members and entities where proceeds of crime were placed. These entities include MyySports and Arktane Technologies Pvt Ltd.

In the chargesheet against Kashif, ED alleged he had extorted Rs 1 crore from the family of a businessman in lieu of helping them in a case being investigated by the agency.

“During investigation, searches were conducted at the residence of Mohammad Kashif located in Sector-107, Noida …wherein cash amounting to Rs. 1,10,50,000, a currency-counting machine and documents related to investigation conducted by various investigation agencies against other persons were recovered and seized. These documents pertain to investigation conducted by DRI, Customs, ED, ICAI etc,” ED said in a statement.

As reported by The Indian Express, Sherpuria has flaunted his connections within the ruling dispensation. J&K LG Manoj Sinha mentioned in his 2019 election affidavit that he had received Rs 25 lakh from ‘Sanjay Rai’ as an unsecured loan.

In December last year, the Centre’s Ministry of Fisheries, Dairying and Animal Husbandry approved a grant of Rs 2 crore to his NGO for a Rashtriya Gokul Mission project.

YREF, sources said, was a key entity under probe by the ED. The Indian Express had reported how this NGO has retired IAS, IPS and armed forces’ officers on its advisory board.

While one retired IAS officer in the advisory board is connected with Kiran Patel, a conman who was arrested more than a month back in Srinagar, another member was an IPS officer embroiled in the 2018 CBI vs CBI battle.