Mohammed Farooq was allegedly operating 135 bank accounts in Mumbai banks (Representational)
The Enforcement Directorate(ED) arrested a Mumbai-based man for allegedly running a trade-based money laundering racket estimated to be over Rs 2,200 crore, officials said on Tuesday.
Mohammed Farooq, 39 was arrested by the agency yesterday on Monday in Mumbai under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), they said.
The money laundering case pertains to an instance where 13 firms, including one identified as Stelkon Infratel Pvt Ltd, remitted about Rs 2,252 crore funds to overseas destinations during 2015-16 by submitting non-existent and forged import documents to the banks.
It said the actual bills of entry were only for Rs 24.64 crore.
The ED said its probe found that these 13 firms had fake addresses and dummy persons as directors and Mohammed Farooq used to "control" them indirectly and was the "kingpin" of this trade-based money laundering business.
Mohammed Farooq, they said, was allegedly operating about 135 bank accounts in various banks in Mumbai to send the funds abroad through hawala, which is an illegal process of sending funds overseas by skirting the regular banking channels.