Goa DGP urges central probe into money-laundering scam

PANAJI, MAY 3: Goa's Director General of Police R S Sahaye has urged the state government to called in central investigating agencies lik...

PANAJI, MAY 3: Goa’s Director General of Police R S Sahaye has urged the state government to called in central investigating agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation, Directorate of Revenue Intellience and the Income-Tax Department to probe a multi-crore, money laundering racket unearthed here last month. Police officials say prominent politicians, local gangsters and small-time businessmen in the state are being investigated for their possible role in the racket.

Though rumours of a money-laundering mafia being active in Goa have been circulating since the last few months, police have only now made a breakthrough with the arrest of a gangster, Babani Sheikh, two weeks ago. Shaikh was allegedly recovering money from borrowers on behalf of money lenders by using strong-arm tactics.

In his police complaint one Kirit Shah, alleged that Sheikh was acting on behalf a prominent moneylender and land owner, Inacio Monserrate, who lends money at exhorbitant rates of interest. “Many builders had borrowed money at high interest rates of 10 per cent per month and are now unable to pay back,” police spokesperson Inspector Apa Teli told The Indian Express. With the real estate boom petering out, the money laundering scheme is coming out in the open, Teli said.

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Prominent Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Manohar Parrikar alleges that politicians have been channelising their ill-gotten gains through the illegal financiers. “My information is that beneficiaries of the power rebate scandal are circulating their money this way,” he said. Parrikar was instrumental in exposing the power rebate scandal last year, where the Pratapsinh Rane government amended a cancelled notification to help subsidise several industries.

Already the name of former minister Congress Somnath Zuwarkar has been dragged into the money laundering scandal, with Kirit Shah naming the politician’ son, Sohan Zuwarkar as one of the money lenders. The Zuwarkars both deny their role in the affair. “Elections are approaching and people are defaming me for political mileage,” Zuwarkar says. His son too added that he was a distributor of aluminium products and is not into lending money.

Police officials say the scandal could run deeper than it appears. “As per documents available, the scandal could be worth at least Rs 3 crore,” Inspector Teli said.

In his note to Chief Secretary Seva Ram Sharma, DGP Sahaye has suggested that central agencies probe the source of the money involved and legalities of the transactions outside the banking system and the involvement of local politicians as well. Sahaye also told presspersons that there may be many more cases of money laundering in the state. He said the state police will concentrate on the criminal aspect of the case.