Investigations into the alleged money-laundering case against journalist Upendra Rai has taken the probe agencies by surprise as they claimed to have recovered call data records of a senior ED official, an IAS officer earlier posted in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, besides confidential communication between Singapore-based Indian High Commission and a former ED chief, officials said here.

The recoveries also included income tax assessment orders of various companies and Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) of nearly 140 companies generated by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) after a joint CBI-ED searches on Rai and his associates.

The probe agencies along with the Income Tax Department conducted fresh searches in Gurgaon, Kolkata and Mumbai over the week against a number of people including few tax department officials on the basis of these disclosures.

The agencies have seized, during the first round of searches at the premises of Rai and his associates, a confidential communication between the Indian High Commission in Singapore and former ED Director Rajan Katoch in connection with a case related to industrialist Naveen Jindal, the officials said.

A letter written by Jindal to Katoch in 2015 has also been recovered from the cache apart from a secret inquiry report of foreign assets and a note shared by a Special Director of the ED in the backdrop of the Singaporean FIU taking umbrage on the leakage of its shared information in the Indian media.

The officials told PTI that documents pertaining to four IT assessment orders against Mumbai-based companies have been recovered from the premises of Sanjay Snehi, an associate of Rai who is being probed in the case.

Among other seizures made from the premises of Snehi are CDRs of a senior Enforcement Directorate (ED) officer investigating the Supreme Court-monitored Aircel-Maxis case, that of an IAS officer who served as a Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, of a journalist owning a Hindi news portal and those of Rai’s wife Rachna, among others.

All of these are suspected to have been sourced by Rai some years back, a senior official said.

The searches had more surprise for the officials when the sleuths recovered a confidential note of 2010 of an ex-ED Additional Director, now a senior officer in the Delhi Police, to the then CBI Director “complaining” about the activities of Rai.

“The highly classified letter is recovered from a man who himself is the subject of discussion and question in the note. A full inquiry is on to find as to how this document was leaked to Rai,” the official said.

Documents related to a disproportionate assets case charge sheet filed by the CBI against former Noida Chief Engineer Yadav Singh have also been seized by the probe agencies after raids on Rai and his associates Snehi, Rahul Sharma and others early this month.

Among the other sensitive documents in raids against Rai is a 2015 ED complaint filed against meat exporter Moin Qureshi and others.

Qureshi is being probed by the ED, the IT department and the CBI for alleged tax evasion and money laundering after his purported dubious links with former CBI Director A P Singh came to the fore.

A total of 140 STRs, generated by the Financial Intelligence Unit to check dubious, black money and terror-financing linked transactions in the country’s economic channels, have also been seized from a pen drive found at Rai’s premises as part of these recoveries.

The highly sensitive and confidential STRs, of the period between 2015-16, are largely connected to those firms which are being probed by various agencies for trade-based money laundering, black money generation and export/import frauds, including one related to the son of a former chief minister.

The agencies are now probing at least 14 accounts in the name of Rai, his family and company in various banks in Delhi, eight luxury cars like Audi, Mercedes, Honda and Innova and three firms linked to him — Ms Upendra Rai and Associates, Ms Clear Water Solution and Ms Brandbird Marketing Services.

The agencies have found that Rai owns two flats in the upscale GK-I locality in the national capital, one flat each at the Hailey Road in Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Nashik (Maharashtra), and two in Lucknow in the his and his family’s name. The ED may attach them under the PMLA.

Three id cards issued by the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) in the name of Rai have also been recovered and are being investigated, even as the journalist is being probed for allegedly using a fake Aerodrome Entry Pass (AEP) to enter sensitive areas of “all” the airports in the country.

Some email questionnaires sent by Rai and his associates to business groups and other individuals are also under the scanner, the official said.
A number of mobile phones and hard disks of Rai and his associates have been sent for forensic examination by the probe agencies which is expected to reveal more information about Rai’s links.