The Enforcement Directorate may seek to extend the remand of Bhupinder Singh Honey, the nephew of Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi.
Honey is due to appear in court on Tuesday after her custody in a money laundering prevention case related to illegal mining in Punjab expired.
The ED is considering seeking additional custody after Honey reportedly recused during the interrogation and did not cooperate with the investigating agency, the sources said. He needs to face other defendants and more documents, ED sources said.
Honey was arrested on the night of February 3-4 and remanded in ED custody until February 8.
Honey is interrogated by an elite team of officers from the Central Investigation Agency. The court allowed his family to see him once a day for an hour at a time.
ED documents accessed by IANS show that Honey allegedly took money from officials in lieu of transfers and mailings of their choosing.
“Furthermore, Bhupinder Singh made it clear in his statement during the search that, among other things, from his residence in Ludhiana (Rs 409 crore), Sandeep Kumar’s residence in Ludhiana (Rs 199 crore) and homeland All cash confiscated on Mohali’s house (Rs 389 crore) was actually related to him. He admitted to generating such criminal proceeds through mining-related activities, including clearing mining documents and transferring officers,” reads the ED document.
Sources say Honey has used his political connections to make huge profits since he was close to Chaney.
According to ED documents, Honey admitted to recovering his Rs 10 crore in the raid.
ED claims he also profited from illegal mining.
On January 18, the ED conducted raids at 10 different locations, including Honey’s home in Homeland Heights.
The ED continued to search various locations for two days and recovered criminal documents.
Honey was asked to appear at the ED’s regional office in Jalandhar. He must record his statements related to the ongoing investigation.
ED officials recorded statements from Honey’s business partner, Kudrat Deep Singh.
ED officials had said they seized criminal documents related to illegal sand mining, property transactions, mobile phones, gold worth more than Rs 2.1 lakh, watches worth Rs 1.2 lakh and Rs 100 crore in cash during the raid.
A source said the documents they recovered confirmed that Kudrat Deep Singh ran two companies of which Bhupinder Singh Honey was a co-director.
The companies are basically shell companies, but the ED has uncovered a lot of money deals, according to sources. One of these companies is Provider Overseas Consultancy Limited, which was established in 2018 with an equal share of 33.33%.
Complete News Source : Business Standard
