Former director of Hindmata Cinema arrested in connection with Rs 6,000 crore scam
Sanjay Jain is the third person arrested in connection with the Rs 6,000 crore fake remittance scam (Representational Image)
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday arrested the former director of Mumbai’s Hindmata Cinema in connection with Rs 6,000 crore foreign remittance scam.
Sanjay Jain, who was the director of Hindmata Gold Entertainment Private Limited till March 31 this year, was arrested by the agency under section 19 of PMLA, 2002. Jain is the third person to have been arrested in connection with the scam.
Earlier, the agency had arrested Pandit Saurabh, director of Sky Light Ltd, and Anil Chokhra, ex-director of Kanika Gems for allegedly laundering black money by making foreign remittences on the basis of forged bills and import documents.
According to India Today, Vijay Kothari is the main mastermind of the scam. A diamond trader by profession, Kothari is still at large and believed to be hiding in Dubai or Hong Kong.
ED had registered a case in the matter two years ago after it found out that three companies – Yogeshwar Diamonds, Kanika Gems and Shree Charbhuja Diamonds – had reportedly remitted crores of bank loan amount to Hong Kong and Dubai based companies.
The accused made fraudulent overseas remittances, believed to be in excess of Rs 6,000 crore, by submitting fake import bills to banks.
“It is a multi-layer scam where at least 200-300 shell companies or dubious importers deposited fake bills of entries in multiple banks. Later, remittances were made to unknown individuals outside India, especially in Hong Kong and Dubai”, a source told the channel.
The banks in question were Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and IndusInd Bank.
Jain was one of the suspects responsible for creating the forged bills and import documents. He was summoned for questioning yesterday and arrested the same day.
Editor’s Note: The article earlier mentioned Sanjay Jain as the co-owner of the cinema. However, upon receiving a clarification from the company about his position and tenure, the same has been rectified in the report above. The error is sincerely regretted.
