THE Enforcement Directorate (ED), Raipur Zonal Office, has provisionally attached properties worth Rs 68.16 crore belonging to three Chhattisgarh-based country liquor manufacturers in connection with the multi-crore liquor scam in the State. The attachment, ordered on December 30 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, forms part of the continuing probe into an organised syndicate involving senior bureaucrats, politicians and private entities.

 

The attached properties pertain to M/s Chhattisgarh Distilleries Ltd, M/s Bhatia Wine Merchants Pvt Ltd and M/s Welcome Distilleries Pvt Ltd. With this action, the cumulative attachment made by the ED against these three distilleries has increased to Rs 96.55 crore. According to the ED, investigations have revealed that the three licensed distillers were key participants in a structured three-part corruption model that controlled liquor procurement, production and market allocation in Chhattisgarh between 2019 and 2022.

 

The ED has established that between April 2019 and June 2022, the three distilleries supplied approximately 60,50,950 cases of illicit liquor under the Part B mechanism alone, generating substantial proceeds of crime. The money laundering investigation was initiated on the basis of an FIR registered by the State Economic Offences Investigation and Anti-Corruption Bureau (SEOIACB), Raipur, under provisions of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The underlying investigation concluded that the liquor scam caused a massive loss to the State exchequer.

 

The ED has identified Anil Tuteja, former IAS officer, Anwar Dhebar and Arun Pati Tripathi, among others, as key figures in the syndicate. The agency estimates that the scam generated more than Rs 2,800 crore in proceeds of crime. So far, the ED has attached assets worth over Rs 380 crore and arrested several high-profile accused, including Anil Tuteja, Arvind Singh, Trilok Singh Dhillon, Anwar Dhebar, Arun Pati Tripathi, Kawasi Lakhma, Chaitanya Baghel, Soumya Chaurasia and IAS officer Niranjan Das.