FINAL ORDER

17.03.2025 Present appeal U/s 26 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, is filed against the impugned order dated 14.06.2017 passed by the Adjudicating Authority, in Original Application no.78/2017 vide which respondent-ED was permitted to retain the documents and articles seized from the possession of appellant Ravi Aggarwal, detailed as under:

20 pieces of gold weighing 998 gms valued at Rs.29,54,080/-.

2. As per the facts of the case, F.I.R No.416/2016 dated 29.11.2016 was registered by the Delhi Police, into alleged case of fraudulently converting demonetized black money into Gold by way of depositing the same in the accounts of front companies having bank account with Axis Bank, Kashmere Gate, Delhi. The offence registered by Delhi Police being a Scheduled offence under PMLA, an ECIR/11/DLZO/2016 dated 30.11.2016 was registered by the ED and started investigation for money laundering.

During investigation, it is revealed that as a result of demonetization of currency notes of 500/- & 1000/- denomination announced by the Government of India on 08.11.2016, persons having large amount of such notes were looking for avenues to convert their unaccounted demonetized money into monetized form or into bullion/gold using the bank accounts of the front companies.

One Nitin Gupta, Mohit Garg and others conceived the entire scheme and collected the cash from prospective buyers including Sh. Prateek Bansal, who was one of the prospective buyers, who has given Rs. 12 crores (approx.) to Sh. Nitin Gupta for purchasing gold. Sh. Prateek Bansal collected this money from various prospective-buyers, like Ravi Aggarwal (herein appellant), Anirudh Narain Aggarwal and others. For this purpose, Nitin Gupta got in touch with Mohit Garg, a person from whom he was taking RTGS in the past also. Mohit Garg got in touch with Rajeev Singh Kushwaha his friend and associate who had been facilitating his transactions in the past also. Both of them agreed to the proposal of Nitin Gupta for a commission @ 15% of total cash deposits. They further connived with the Branch Manager and Manager Operations of Axis Bank Kashmere Gate, Delhi and deposited huge amount of money into the accounts of three front companies controlled by Rajeev Singh Khushwaha namely M/s Sunrise Trading, M/s Himalaya International and M/s RD Traders. After the cash was deposited, RTGS were sent into the accounts of M/s Beagle Marketing another front company of Rajeev Singh and transferred the money to the accounts of importers/suppliers of gold namely, M/s Tusar Jewellers, M/s Aadi Traders, M/s Sidhhi Vinayak, M/s Ganesh Traders and M/s Maa & Sons etc., who in turn showed sale of gold to M/s Beagle Marketing from which they had received RTGS at the prevailing rate. Such gold/diamond was received by Nitin Gupta, Mohit Garg & Prateek Bansal and was distributed to the persons including Sh. Ravi Agarwal and Sh. Anirudh Agarwal, who had provided cash to Prateek Bansal and gold bars were also given to bank official namely Sh. Shobhit Sinha, Operation Manager and Sh. Vineet Gupta, Branch Head, as commission.

During investigation statement of various persons including Sh. Ravi Agarwal and Sh. Anirudh Narain Aggarwal were recorded under Section 50 of PMLA and on the basis of the revelations made by them, search was conducted on their residential premises on 17.02.2017 & 18.02.2017 respectively. Twenty pieces of gold weighing 998 grams was recovered from Ravi Agarwal andfive gold bar of 1 kg. each and five pieces of diamond were recovered from Anirudh Narain Agarwal and valuation was also done at the same time.

The said jewelrywas apparentlybought out of proceeds of crime received by them.Accordingly, Original Application No. 78/2017 was filed before the Adjudicating Authority for permission to retain the said articles under Section 17 (4) of the PMLA, 2002.

On notice by the Adjudicating Authority, present appellantfiled reply raising the objections for retention on the various ground