The Enforcement Directorate has attached dozens of excavators, allegedly used for illegal sand mining in Tamil Nadu, and frozen the company bank accounts of sand lifting contractors, as part of its months-long investigation in the State.
According to sources in the Central agency, over 200 Kobelco brand excavators were attached in connection with the case of illegal sand mining, in which Central and State governments are reported to have incurred a huge revenue loss by way of GST.
Investigators also took steps to freeze company bank accounts of sand lifting contractors who were involved in mining river sand over the past two years, the sources said.
The move follows the September 12, 2023, searches at multiple locations of sand mining or sand stockyards conducted by the Enforcement Directorate.
During the searches, conducted on suspicion of money laundering, the agency claimed to have unearthed incriminating documents, including fake bills and counterfeit QR codes, which also pointed to GST losses to the Central and State governments.
Searches were also conducted at the residential and business premises of various persons, including S. Ramachandran, K. Rathinam, P. Karikalan, auditor P. Shanmugaraj and officials of the Water Resources Engineering Department of the State government.
In a statement, the ED said it had provisionally attached assets valued at ₹130.60 crore, including movable assets amounting to ₹128.34 crore consisting of 209 sand excavators employed in illicit sand mining. Additionally, funds amounting to ₹2.25 crore spread across 35 bank accounts belonging to Shanmugam Ramachandran, Karuppaiah Rethinam, Pannerselvam Karikalan and others involved in unlawful sand mining activities, were also attached under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
After roping in the expertise of the National Remote Sensing Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and IIT-Kanpur to conduct a technical study, the Enforcement Directorate informed the Madras High Court that the total sale value of illegal excess sand mined in the past one or two years could be about ₹4,730 crore whereas the revenue shown on record was only ₹36.45 crore.
Crucial data may be obtained from excavator
The excavators would provide data on the duration of sand mining operations, location, fuel consumed etc. which would serve as crucial evidence on the quantity of sand mined. The vehicles come with company-fitted gadgets that recorded and stored such data, the sources said.
Investigators are also trying to retrieve CCTV and computer entry data suspected to have been deleted from storage devices seized during the searches, the sources added.
