AAP minister accused of hawala payments to China

The Enforcement Directorate on Friday alleged that Delhi minister and AAP leader Raaj Kumar Anand has been accused by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) of making hawala payments to China and evading customs duty of Rs 7 crore on imports.

The federal probe agency raided the premises of the 57-year-old minister in connection with a money laundering probe. The raid was launched around 7:30 am on Thursday and ended around 5 am on Friday.

The agency said it initiated investigation against Anand and persons and entities linked to him “on the basis of a prosecution complaint filed by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence” for the commission of offence under various sections of the Customs Act, 1962.

“As per the said complaint, Raaj Kumar Anand did hawala payments to China and evaded customs duty amounting to about Rs 7 crore on various imports,” the ED alleged in a statement.

It said a local court took cognisance of the offence on August 11.

Anand said in a press conference during the day that the case against him dates back to 2005 and that he did no wrong.

“The searches went on for about 23 hours and this is part of the conspiracy to harass AAP leaders. We were harassed since morning,” the MLA from Patel Nagar told reporters after ED officials left his residence in the Civil Lines area of the national capital around 5 am.

The raids were launched against him on Thursday morning at 13 locations in the national capital region, Kolkata and Uttar Pradesh.

The ED claimed that it seized “evidences relating unaccounted business investments and hawala payments sent to China during 2023 from key employees of Raaj Kumar Anand apart from Rs 74 lakh cash and various incriminating documents and digital records” during the searches.

The DRI is an investigation organisation under the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), while hawala denotes illegal and fraudulent KYC-based monetary transactions through both banking and non-banking channels.