ED raids residence and office of Moin Qureshi

NEW DELHI: Probing FEMA violations, the Enforcement Directorate on Thursday carried out raids at the residence and office of controversial meat exporter Moin Qureshi and a Turkman Gate based hawala dealer. After the raids, the ED officials brought Moin Qureshi for questioning to its office.
During the raids, at seven places including Qureshi’s Chhattarpur farm residence, ED sources said they recovered several incriminating documents and evidence.
ED is probing violations of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) by Qureshi and companies belonging to his associates after income tax department found that his wife and children used to shop in Dubai for which money was paid through hawala channels. Subsequently, Moin Qureshi allegedly paid money through hawala in Hong Kong to renowned French architect Jean-Louis Deniot for designing his Chhattarpur farm residence.
If sources are to believed, ED has also got statement of Deniot from I-T department, which the taxman had recorded earlier.
ED is probing some companies which reportedly belonged to Qureshi’s associates and were used in Dubai and Hong Kong for making payments.
ED teams went to Qureshi’s Chhattarpur farm, his Defence Colony office, a hawala dealer in Turkman Gate, a forex dealer and few other places on Thursday and recovered several documents which they claimed corroborate the expenses.
To verify the allegations, ED officials are likely to question Qureshi till late at night.
ED is the designated nodal central agency to probe crimes under FEMA laws and hence the tax department had shared relevant portions of its report with the agency.
The taxman, in the said appraisal report, had pegged an alleged evasion of Rs 200 crore by Qureshi and his business firms and the report is now with the assessment wing of the I-T department which is expected to soon issue demand notices to him.
The appraisal report was also placed before the Supreme Court by the tax department in October this year.
The case came to light after the I-T department conducted searches on the premises of Qureshi and his firms in February this year and it detected alleged “under reporting” of profits by these business units which are primarily involved in meat processing, selling and exporting businesses.