Chennai:
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted a fresh raid in various premises in Tamil Nadu regarding the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation Limited Money Laundering case on Friday morning. Tasmac is a state government body that has a monopoly on liquor trade in the state.
Officials said 10 campuses were raided under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The ED conducted the first set of raids in March and said it was found “many irregularities” in the operation of Tasmac, including “manipulation” in tender processes and “untouched” cash transactions of Rs 1,000 crore through distillery companies.
In a statement, the investigating agency stated that it found “evidence”, suggesting these corrupt practices, as it raided the corporate offices of employees, distilleries and tasmac plants.
It said that this transfer posting, transport and bar license tenders, “intriminating” data for some distillery companies related to indent orders were found, “Additional fees of Rs 10-30 per bottle by TASMAC outlets, with” participation of TasMAC officers “, during discoveries.
The ED stated that this data shows “manipulation” in the transport tender allocation of TASMAC, where the “shiny” issue was “mismatched” between the applicant and the KYC details of the demand draft (DD), suggesting that the final successful bidder did not even receive the required DD before the application deadline.
Tenders were provided despite being only one applicant in the final dialect. TASMAC paid more than Rs 100 crore to transporters annually, the ED claimed.
