ED files chargesheet against Raju, others for alleged funds laundering

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) yesterday filed a charge sheet against Satyam Computers founder Ramalinga Raju and 212 others, including some firms, for allegedly laundering funds under a ''corporate veil'' to perpetrate the accounting scam that rocked the business world, PTI reports.

The agency filed a prosecution investigation report before the XXI additional chief metropolitan magistrate cum special sessions judge in Hyderabad today seeking to ''prosecute the accused for the offence of money laundering'' under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

According to the ED report, Ramalinga Raju and the other accused, who have also been investigated by CBI, ''derived proceeds of crime from the sale and pledge of inflated shares of M/s Satyam Computers and Services Ltd (SCSL)''.

The report noted further, ''it transpires that the accused resorted to inter-connected transactions, so as to ensure that crime proceeds were distanced from its initial beneficiaries, and laundered the said proceeds under the cover of the corporate veil, with an ulterior motive to project the properties so acquired as untainted ones''.

The investigating agency further highlighted the modus operandi used by the accused of receiving ''bonus shares, shares under Employee Stock Option Schemes and dividends on the inflated shares of M/s SCSL [Satyam Computer Services Ltd]''.

Properties worth Rs1,075 crore have already been attached by the agency.

The ED said, Raju, "his relatives and associate members floated 327 front companies which were used to layer the proceeds of crime",  Business Standard.

The report further said, the "accused have purchased movable and immovable properties in their names, in the name of front companies and in the name of their close relatives, associates who were also directors in the front companies."

The ED stated it had taken possession of most of the attached properties.

The ED stated last October that it had attached Rs822 crore fixed deposits of Satyam kept with four banks in the ongoing case against the company promoter and others.

The attachment orders had been served by the agency on Andhra Bank, Bank of Baroda, IDBI Bank and ING Vysya Bank pertaining to the fixed deposits and the same had been communicated to Mahindra Satyam Limited (now Tech Mahindra) and the accused.

The ED, its investigation into the Satyam case was on going in India and abroad for "further identification of the proceeds of crime".