Bhubaneswar/New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate has filed a money laundering case against Raja Chakra, a youth leader of the Biju Janta Dal (BJD) in Odisha, to probe charges of financial irregularities worth crores of rupees in transport, mining and liquor businesses linked to him and his associates in the state, official sources said Friday.
The federal probe agency also conducted searches in this case at Keonjhar and Bhubaneswar Thursday. The premises covered included the home and offices of Soumya Shankar Chakra alias Raja Chakra and his linked entities, the sources said.
The money laundering case stems from an FIR of the Odisha Police Economic Offences Wing (EOW) which is probing him on the charges of financial irregularities in transportation, mining and liquor businesses spread across the state, they said.
Chakra, a powerful youth leader of the BJD, is currently lodged in jail under judicial custody in connection with the EOW case, the sources said.
The ED has filed the case, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), with its Delhi-based headquarters investigation unit and not at its zonal unit in Bhubaneswar given the “sensitivity and likelihood of involvement of certain influential persons including politically exposed persons of Odisha” in this case, the sources said.
The probe pertains to “large-scale” embezzlement of public funds from Gandhamardan Loading Agency and Transporting Cooperative Society Ltd., Keonjhar.
The society, according to the sources, was made a “front” by Chakra for “siphoning” funds.
The ED found that funds worth crores of rupees of the society were “misappropriated” by Chakra through “forged” records, “manipulated” work orders, and “inflated or fake” expenses under heads such as periphery development, fuel and transport.
Chakra was not an office bearer of the society, but the ED probe found that he exercised “influence” and “controlled” the day-to-day decisions of the society.
The agency found that more than 70 vehicles, mostly ending with registration number ’21’, were being used for illegal mining and transportation owned by Chakra and his “benami” entities.
The agency, according to the sources, is also probing “diversion” of illicit funds into the liquor business of Chakra, licensed in the name of his wife Rupali Pattanaik.
The ED found during searches that while the licence to run the liquor shop was in the name of Rupali Pattanaik, payments for the sale of liquor were received in accounts of someone else.
PTI
