Staff Reporter:
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.