Mamta Kulkarni to be made co-accused in Rs 2,000cr ephedrine haul

THANE: The crime branch has initiated the process of naming Bollywood actress Mamta Kulkarni as a co-accused in the recent Rs 2,000-crore ephedrine seizure case, claimed sources. The officials have also frozen eight bank accounts of pharma firm Avon Lifesciences. The police have not ruled out that funds could have been transferred from Kulkarni’s bank accounts to those of Avon Lifesciences. In April, over 20 tonnes of ephedrine was recovered from a shut Avon Lifesciences unit near Solapur.The biggest-ever drug haul made investigators look into the financial transactions of the firm and brought to light the alleged nexus of Manoj Jain, director of Avon Lifesciences, with international drug baron and Kulkarni’s husband Vicky Goswami, who is based in Kenya.
“During the initial phase of investigations, the accused were reluctant to furnish financial details and so we sent letters to all nationalized and private banks where the company’s bank accounts are maintained and told them to freeze them with immediate effect as we suspected discrepancies in the transactions,” a senior crime branch officer told TOI. The firm’s accounts in a co-operative bank and a nationalized bank in Solapur, a nationalized bank in Thane, two in Hyderabad and three in Mumbai have been frozen, said a police officer. “We want to trail the financial transactions and we want to know their networks and the types of disbursement. We are also checking if there’s a hawala angle as there is a possibility that the funds could have been routed internationally to the drug cartel.”
Meanwhile, the crime branch has received the forsensic test report of 43 of the 101 ephedrine samples which gave clarity on the purity as 80-99%. The police are also verifying if the recent seizure of 550kg methaqualone from Palghar is linked with Goswami.