ED arrests Kolkata businessman Parasmal Lodha in Mumbai for illegal conversion of Rs 25 crore

New Delhi: ED arrested businessman Parasmal Lodha on Thursday in connection with conversion of more than Rs 25 crore of old notes to new currency notes, as part of its probe under money laundering laws after demonetisation. Allegedly, Lodha is the man who converted old currency notes to new in Shekhar Reddy and Rohit Tandon cases. Parasmal Lodha was first intercepted by ED sleuths at the Mumbai airport yesterday, based on a look out circular, while he was reportedly trying to fly out. ED will produce Lodha in a court here to obtain his further custody under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Paras M Lodha is a well known businessman with interests in real estate and mining. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday had arrested businessman J.Shekhar Reddy and two others here for money laundering. The Income Tax department recently seized 127 kg of gold and cash totalling Rs 106 crore in old 500 and 1,000 rupee notes and Rs 34 crore in new currency from businessmen Shekhar Reddy, Srinivasalu and Prem. Reddy, a contractor, had reportedly executed a lot of work for the Tamil Nadu government. While cash amount of Rs 13.5 crores was seized from lawyer Rohit Tandon. The Enforcement Directorate has achieved a huge amount of success in the chasedown of blackmoney with the arrest of Lodha. The ED effectively acted on the commands of their director Karnal Singh when in a tip-off they were informed that Paras Lodha was on the move to leave India. Two teams were sent to Kolkata and Mumbai to arrest the Kolkata businessman. The Enforcement Directorate earlier on December 1 raided multiple hawala operators across the country involved in illegal conversion of old currency notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 to valid legal tender since demonetisation on November 8. ED raided multiple locations in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Chennai among others based on intelligence gathered by the agency. Two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced scrapping of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes to curb corruption and black money, the Income-Tax department raided several hawala dealers and jewellers across the country for cutting barter deals with people to convert invalid currency notes into valid legal tender. (With inputs from agencies)