Sahara money laundering case: Almost 95 per cent money flow was in cash, ED goes for data analysis after searches

After conducting searches for almost 20 hours at Sahara Group headquarter in Lucknow, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) have come across with data/bills/receipts that indicates - almost 95 percent transactions of money between the group companies and the investors were done in cash.

The ED officials from Mumbai, Delhi and Lucknow have seized the data of computer servers linked with Sahara India Real Estate Corp. Ltd. (SIRECL) and the Sahara Housing Investment Corp. Ltd (SHICL) - which are currently under the probe.

The ED official confirmed Indiatoday.in, that, "the receipts and bills found during the searches indicates that there is negligible amount being transacted by cheque to investors, in fact almost 95 per cent flow of money was in cash, which is a violation of banking KYC norms."

Now whether these incriminating documents seized by the ED officials are linked with all 3 crore investors of Sahara group companies or does it belong to genuine or the fake investors - that would be under the investigation.

"It is a huge database that we have got hold in our hand. The searches was quite successful as we got all those crucial evidences and documents that we were looking for. Now the data analysis would be done to verify whether all these bills, receipts etc belongs to genuine investors or the fakes," the ED official told Indiatoday.in.

The agency would now examine the huge pool of database (in soft copy format) seized from both group companies, in house. In addition, the ED officials are also in the process of probing more than 4500 bank accounts of entities related to Sahara group - which was shares by Vandana Bhargava, one of the director of Sahara group companies.

The interesting aspect here is, if believed by the ED officials that in its initial statements, officials of Sahara group companies had claimed that - "the flow of money transaction was in 60/40 or 70/30 ratio i.e. 60/70 per cent in Cash format and remaining 40/30 per cent in Cheque." But that was not the case found after searches.

A detailed queries were mailed to Sahara group regarding the cash and cheque transactions with investors. The Sahara spokesperson replied back, saying, "We never said that in OFCD, 60 per cent cheque and 40 per cent cash transactions occurred. Cash payments were high because our esteemed investors are mostly from the lower strata of society and our average deposit amount is Rs 8,000 so most of the payments are below Rs 20,000. Hence, majority of payments are in cash."

Sahara official added, "Regarding what the ED officials took in the course of searches, we would like to inform you that it was all normal office information and same information is already with SEBI."

On Thursday, the ED conducted searches on both group companies present within Sahara India Bhavan, the headquarter of Sahara Group in Lucknow. These searches were in connection with the money laundering case of Rs 24,000 crore under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Two weeks back, Vandana Bhargava was interrogated, second time in one month by ED Mumbai team. Later, she submitted soft data of around 4500 plus bank accounts of Sahara India group to the agency.

The ED official had confirmed, saying, "These 4500 plus bank accounts belongs to Sahara group, spread across in various cities of India. We are in the process of examination of these bank accounts to check the amount deposited and transacted, where the money has gone and how much, in which periods the transactions took place and who was the signing authority."

In her statement to ED officials, Bhargava has said that she was not directly involved in this money laundering case. "I was an employee of Sahara group, therefore, I was made to become director of these companies. It was not by my choice," the ED official confirmed India Today.

Bhargava is the only director who was authorised by the court to assist in depositing Rs 10,000 crore with the market regulator - the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) -- to bail out the group chairman Subroto Roy, who has been in the Tihar jail since March 4, 2014.

Sources says, it was only after Bhargava's second statement that the agency decided to conduct searches at Sahara headquarter and get the crucial evidences in hand.

In 2014, ED had registered a money laundering case against Sahara Group under PMLA Act, in connection with non-payment of crores of rupees to depositors as probed by capital markets regulator SEBI.

Some months back, around 4,600 investors in two Sahara group companies have come forward to claim refunds from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), which had asked those who had purchased bonds issued by the entities to claim their money.

Sahara has been arguing before courts that it had repaid most of the investors who had come forward to claim the investment they had made in bonds issued by two group companies - SIRECL and SHICL.

Sahara has maintained that it has cleared over 90 pc of the outstanding amount and paid directly to the bondholders, and the remaining amount added up to around Rs 2,500 crore. Following SC orders, it had deposited Rs 5,120 crore to Sebi in December 2012, while another Rs 3,100 crore was deposited this June.

The probe by ED would look into allegations that the funds raised were laundered and there were no genuine investors.