The Australian investigators landed in the Capital on Saturday to join the probe into an international drug money laundering syndicate busted on Thursday with the arrest of five people in a synchronised operation conducted in both the countries in coordination with the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The ED arrested the purported prime accused Paramdeep Singh Arora along with his brother Gagandeep in Amritsar, whereas their alleged associate Gaurav Gupta was held at Karol Bagh in Delhi. The agency has obtained seven days custody of the accused persons.
The agency probe has revealed that the accused persons ran legitimate foreign exchange offices, and were also into large-scale genuine transfer of funds on behalf of their clients in India to various countries, including Australia, the United Kingdom, the U.S. and Germany.
However, based on the documents received from Australia, phone interceptions and Australian bank transaction papers seized during the searches, the agency has strong reasons to suspect that at the behest of drug trafficking syndicates in Australia, the accused would “mix” the drug money with large pools of legitimate transactions to evade detection.
Preliminary ED investigations have indicated that huge amounts originating from Australia would be routed to at least three Hong Kong-based companies for further transfers in different countries.