The Enforcement Directorate, during its searches at the residence of IAS officer Sanjeev Jaiswal in a money laundering case related to Covid field hospital contracts, found that he and his wife have 24 properties worth Rs 34 crore and also a fixed deposit of Rs 15 crore. The probe agency has found suspicious FDs of Rs 5 crore made by the family members of IAS Sanjeev Jaiswal during the Covid 19 period in 2020.
Sanjeev Jaiswal appeared before the ED for questioning on Friday. He was seen entering the ED office at Ballard Estate in south Mumbai around 11.30 am and was questioned for over eight hours.
According to the ED, Sanjeev Jaiswal said that his father-in-law, who is a retired senior bureaucrat, had gifted property worth Rs 34 crore to him and his wife. Jaiswal also claimed that the said FD was gifted by his father-in-law to his wife.
On June 21, the probe agency raided 15 locations linked to some people, including an IAS officer. Jaiswal had served as an additional commissioner in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
The ED recovered jewelery worth around Rs 2.4 crore, Rs 68 lakh in cash and documents related to the property during those raids. During the search, ED officials found documents of various properties in the name of Jaiswal’s family members.
To be precise, documents of about 24 such properties were found and these properties are mostly located in Mumbai and other important cities and districts of Maharashtra.
The ED said that apart from FDs and properties, there have been some suspicious transactions from the account of Lifeline Hospital Management Services (LFMS) run by Sujit Patkar and others, which are also being probed.
Patkar’s company LFMS got the contract from BMC to run Covid centers in Worli and Dahisar, for which the company was paid around Rs 30 crore. Of this, Rs 22 crore was transferred by Patkar and his associates to certain entities and accounts.
The ED last week carried out raids in Mumbai in a money laundering case against businessman Sujit Patkar, who is believed to be a close aide of Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut, Patkar and his three partners have been accused of fraudulently obtaining BMC contracts for managing COVID-19 field hospitals during the pandemic.