New Delhi (09.03.2021): In a trade-based money laundering scam of ₹1,500 crores, the interrogations of a businessman, Deepak Agarwal, is underway at the Enforcement Directorate office at Visakhapatnam

After getting the custody of Agarwal for three days from the city's metropolitan magistrate, the ED has also sought the custody of Agarwal's alleged accomplice Ayush Goyal.

The ED's investigations into the scam were triggered by an FIR filed by the AP Police against  Vaddi Mahesh & others on a complaint by the Income Tax Department.

The investigation revealed that Vaddi Mahesh, in collusion with others, had incorporated various shell firms and companies in India and opened bank accounts in the names of these firms/companies. Vaddi Mahesh received funds from Pramod Agarwal, Ayush Goyal, Vikas Gupta, and Vinit Goenka which were deposited by him into the bank accounts of his firms and further transferred to the bank accounts of his shell companies.

Subsequently, the funds were remitted outside India to various companies in Singapore, Hong Kong, and China in the guise of payments for the import of “customized software”. Mahesh had allegedly prepared fake invoices purported to have been raised by those overseas companies in the name of his Indian companies and had arranged fake certificates with the help of Chartered Accountants, who certified that the “customized software” was downloaded in their presence and those certificates were submitted to the banks as proof of import of software.

Deepak Agarwal is the Director of one of the Hong Kong-based companies, which had received around ₹300 Crores from these shell companies in India. Ayush Goyal is alleged to have supplied the cash to Vaddi Mahesh and gave instructions about remitting funds outside India.

The kingpin of this scam, Bhimender Kumar Goyal, is presently lodged in Tihar Jail.