New Delhi: The ED said on Friday that it seized Rs 19 lakh cash apart from a “large number” of property documents in the name of benami persons during raids on premises linked to BRS MLA Gudem Mahipal Reddy and his businessman brother Gudem Madhusudan Reddy in and around Hyderabad. The raids were launched on Thursday at about ten locations as part of a money laundering investigation linked to alleged illegal mining.
The money laundering case stems from an FIR of the Telangana Police against a company Santhosh Sand and Granite Supply located in Patancheru, Hyderabad and promoted by Gudem Madhusudan Reddy.
The premises of G Madhusudan Reddy, G Mahipal Reddy, their company and others were searched, the central agency said in a statement. The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) party is headed by former Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao.
Search operations led to the seizure of “unaccounted” cash of Rs 19 lakh along with large number of property documents in the names of unrelated persons who are suspected to be “benamis” of the accused persons, the Enforcement Directorate said.
Mobile phones “containing evidence related to cash dealings” were also seized, it said. Some bank locker keys were recovered and examination of these lockers is expected to furnish more evidence, it said. The accused firm, according to the ED, was found to have excavated and transported excess quantity of 11,98,743 CBM of building stone and road metal within the quarry lease permitted area and 10,11,672 CBM of material beyond the permitted area (on encroached government land measuring 4.37 hectares).
In this process, the agency alleged, the accused “illegally amassed” around Rs 300 crore by sale of illegally excavated material and also evaded royalty amount of Rs 39.08 crore due to the government.
“The sale proceeds of illegally excavated material were deliberately not reported in banking transactions and books of accounts and the transactions were suspected to have been carried out in cash.
“The proceeds of crime in the form of cash were laundered by the accused and were invested in real estate and other activities,” the ED claimed.