ED raids and seals 15 Mohan India offices

Probing suspected money laundering in the crisis-riddden National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL), Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday conducted cross-country searches on the premises of Mohan India Ltd, a major borrower.

The agency also sealed these properties estimated to be worth Rs 100 crore.
A special team of ED sleuths from Mumbai today carried out searches on close to 15 premises in the national capital region, Maharashtra capital, Lucknow, Punjab and Chandigarh. The development comes just a day after the company had made a commitment to pay to the exchange about Rs 771 crore in final settlement over the next one year.

In order to probe the businesses and transactions of the bourse, the ED had registered a criminal case under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) a few days back.

The agency, according to sources, took into its possession a number of documents, account ledgers and few costly four-wheelers during the searches which began early on Thursday. The ED suspects the firm laundered huge amounts of sums generated from the operations at NSEL and its investigations suggest these funds were ploughed into real estate and other avenues.

A flat in Delhi's Jor Bagh area, a villa in Gurgaon, a farmhouse in Kapashera and few other locations in the NCR were searched today, sources said.

The ED, according to its probe till now, found no sugar stocks in the name of the firm which were reflected in the original documents.

Mohan India had yesterday announced that it will make a down payment of Rs 11 crore and the balance will be paid over the next one year. The firm's total outstanding was Rs 950 crore.

NSEL, promoted by Jignesh Shah-led FTIL, is facing problem of settling Rs 5,600 crore dues to 13,000 investors after it suspended trade on July 31 on government direction.
So far, NSEL has settled about Rs 209 crore. In a related development in this case, Jignesh Shah on Thursday resigned as Non-Executive Vice Chairman of MCX, the leading commodity derivatives exchange.

‘Everything destroyed’

Jignesh Shah, who is embroiled in the Rs 5,600-crore payment imbroglio at NSEL, on Thursday resigned as Non-Executive Vice-Chairman of MCX and said this crisis has destroyed "everything" he worked for all his life.

Shah has resigned from the company with immediate effect, MCX said in a BSE filing.
"The NSEL crisis has destroyed everything that I have worked hard to build over past two decades. My loss is not just financial but what has hurt me and my family most is the concerted effort to destroy my credibility and trust for which I have lived by all my life," Shah said.

The resignation comes weeks after sector regulator FMC issued notice to Shah and Financial Technologies India Ltd (FTIL), which is the promoter of MCX as well as NSEL.