ED charge sheet: How TMC’s Anubrata Mondal acquired assets worth ₹48 crore
Anubrata Mondal, 64, was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in August 2022 for his alleged involvement in the cattle smuggling case. ED arrested him in November 2022
A supplementary charge sheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a special court in Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court on May 5, has alleged that arrested Trinamool Congress (TMC) strongman Anubrata Mondal was able to acquire assets worth ₹48 crore in seven years though his declared annual income was only ₹3.3 lakh.
Mondal, 64, was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in August 2022 for his alleged involvement in the cattle smuggling case. ED, which is probing into the money laundering aspects of the case, arrested Mondal in November 2022. He is currently in Delhi’s Tihar jail.
The 204-page supplementary charge sheet filed by ED attempts to piece together what ED officials describe as Mondal’s rise since 2015-16 with the help of his chartered accountant (CA) Manish Kothari. HT has reviewed a copy of the document.
To be sure, Anubrata Mondal and his daughter Sukanya have consistently denied the ED allegations.
Starting point
The ED investigation started after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a first information report (FIR) on September 21, 2020, against Satish Kumar, the then commandant of the Border Security Force’s 36th battalion and Md Enamul Haque, the alleged kingpin of the racket. Four days later, the ED also started its probe.
In its new charge sheet, ED named TMC’s president of Birbhum district Anubrata Mondol, Sukanya and Mondal’s CA Manish Kothari.
According to ED, Enamul Haque in 2015 expanded the cattle smuggling racket that he had been allegedly running across the porous border to Bangladesh. While Haque was the kingpin, other members of the syndicate included his three nephews, popularly known as JHM brothers, his associates Abdul Latif Sheikh alias Hingol and others. Haque was arrested in November 2020 by CBI and is in jail.
They bought cattle at very low prices from various custom auctions in the bordering district of Murshidabad and from cattle haats in Hooghly, Murshidabad, Birbhum and North Dinajpur. The cattle were loaded into trucks and sent to Sonar Bangla, the office of Haque and JHM brothers close to the Indo-Bangla border in Murshidabad district that was described by ED as the smuggling racket’s “nerve centre”.
Each truck driver was allegedly a token and a specific route to reach various border outposts such as Nimtita, Khandua and Giria in the Murshidabad district. Local smugglers used to take over from there and smuggle the cattle across the border to Bangladesh, mostly between 11pm and 3am.
According to ED, Enamul Haque and Latif Sheikh allegedly made payments to Mondal, the influential TMC leader who was believed to have the chief minister’s ear. The two were in touch with Mondal through his security guard Sehegal Hossain.
The local administration gave safe passage to the trucks carrying the tokens. The BSF teams at the border too played along, allegedly because of the connivance between Haque and Satish Kumar, a former BSF commandant. Kumar was named in the CBI’s first charge sheet and continues to be in custody.
“Hossain was the contact person for whoever wanted to speak to or meet Mondal. He collected the money from Haque and his aides and was the right-hand of Mondal,” said an ED official.
Cash deposits
According to ED’s new charge sheet, the bribes or protection money was allegedly deposited in various accounts of Mondal and his family members, including his daughter Sukanya.
“The cash amounts have been deposited intentionally in figures like 49000, 49999, 99000, 199000 and 199999 etc to avoid detection by statutory authorities (bank and tax department) or to avoid submitting identity details such as PAN (required for deposits of ₹50000 and above),” said the charge sheet.
“For example, ₹49,000 was deposited every day between August 6 and August 9 in 2019 in Mondal’s account in a private bank. Between June 8 and June 12 in 2020 ₹49,999 were deposited every day in his account,” said an official.
Mondal claimed during questioning that these were remunerations of land deals which he made and profits from his rice mills. ED said he, however, couldn’t produce any documents to back up his claim.
“The figure and pattern of cash deposits clearly reveal that they were not any part of normal trading or business transactions. These bank accounts have been opened only for the purpose of laundering of proceeds of crime (received from Haque, his nephews and associates such as Latif) by projecting as business transactions and to hide these cash transactions to be red-flagged or caught by any government authorities,” the supplementary charge-sheet said.
Sleuths also found that to hide the identity of depositors the cash amounts were deposited through cash deposit machines.
Proceeds of crime
According to the charge sheet, Mondal allegedly used the bribes or protection money to acquire assets and business entities and opened fixed deposits in his own name and in the name of his family members and close associates including servants.
ED officials claim that they have found benami properties and huge transactions in the bank accounts of Mondal’s close associates including Bidyut Baran Gayen, a driver in the civic body and Biswajyoti Banerjee, a ward councillor.
“Both Gayen and Banerjee, who worked as household help of Mondal, said that their ITRs were filed by Mondal’s chartered accountant Manish Kothari and they just signed the ITR on Mondal’s instructions,” said an ED official, adding that Mondal was the ultimate beneficiary.
Their bank accounts were opened by Sehegal Hossain on Mondal’s instructions.
Kothari, while filing all their ITRs, reported transactions under various heads such as income from logistics and transport business, house property income, capital gains and agricultural income. However, the individuals denied having any such source of income during interrogation.
The money from these benamidar bank accounts was transferred to Mondal’s family as credit or to the firms owned by Mondal’s family to give it a colour of unsecured loans.
“Cash was deposited in the (benamidar) bank accounts and thereafter transferred for the use of Mondal, Hossain and their family members,” the charge sheet said.
Mondal, however, told ED officials that he took credit from some persons for his wife’s treatment.
During this period, ED alleged that Mondal also acquired two companies - ANM Agrochem Pvt Ltd and Neer Developer Pvt Ltd – and created several other business entities in the name of his daughter and wife including rice mills to launder money that came as protection money from the cattle smuggling syndicate.
Lottery tickets
According to ED’s probe, Mondal and his daughter Sukanya had declared at least ₹2 crore as a lottery prize since 2018. They claimed to have won the lottery at least 10-12 times.
ED said its investigation revealed that a lottery agency, M/s Ganguly Lottery used to inform Mondal about the winner whenever any person in the Birbhum district won a lottery ticket.
“Mondal through his henchmen and local influencers used to contact the winners of the lottery and used to get the winning lottery ticket in exchange for cash,” the charge sheet said.
Mondal told ED officials during questioning that he and his daughter won lottery tickets at least 10-12 times. Ram Pradip Ganguly, proprietor of M/s Ganguly Lottery stuck to this version during his interrogation by ED officials.
ED scanned Income Tax returns filed by Sukanya Mondal for the year 2019-20 and 2020-21 and found that she had declared lottery winnings on multiple occasions.
Blame game
ED officials said during questioning, Sukanya Mondal claimed that her father Anubrata Mondal and his CA Manish Kothari knew about the transactions and source of money. But her father told ED that Manish Kothari knew the details.
Kothari, on the other hand, alleged during questioning that it was Sukanya Mondal who looked after banking transactions and day-to-day business. He also told officials that Anubrata Mondal rarely dealt with him directly and that he was in touch with Sukanya who also provided him the documents for the tax returns.
