Nagpur: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is likely to arrest some prominent betel nut suppliers shortly after attaching an unaccounted 290 metric tonne of areca nut stock valued at Rs 11.50 crore during the searches at 17 locations in Nagpur early this month.
According to reports the ED recently had allegedly detained a prominent betel nut supplier from Nagpur for questioning after he landed at Mumbai airport from Dubai. Besides attaching the huge betel nut stock, the ED officers had also seized Rs 16.5 lakh cash, incriminating documents and digital devices during the searches in the Nagpur city.
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Tuesday 28 Jan. 2025
The ED had launched a crackdown on betel nut mafia and syndicate of suppliers of Indonesian betel nut, commission agents, logistic providers, transporters, hawala operators and buyers who were smuggling the areca nuts into India via the Indo-Myanmar border. The mafia fabricated domestic invoices to smuggle betel nuts and transported the consignments to Nagpur, Gondia and other districts in the region.
Reports said that Wasim Bawla, Prakash Goyal of Goyal Trading, Altaf Kaliwala, Asif Ghani, Hemantkumar Gulabchand and Himanshu Bhadra of Digvijay Transport Company were on ED’s radar after the raids on their establishments. During the simultaneous searches, owners of the godowns in who stocked the imported betel nuts of the suppliers had failed to furnish any valid documents, stock registers, bills, invoices, quality control certificates and transport permits.
The ED initiated the probe against the betel nut mafia after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) blew the lid off the international smuggling racket by registering a case on March 5 last year as per the orders of the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court. Reports said that the investigation also revealed that Nagpur-based traders were indulging in smuggling of substandard betel nuts from Indonesia. Some of the accused had falsely claimed the same to be originating from member countries of South Asia PreferentialTrading Agreement and South Asia Free Trading Agreement by using fake certificates of origin, bills/invoices to evade customs duty.
Meanwhile, reports said that one of the betel nut suppliers and other suspects were summoned to the ED office in Mumbai after the searches in the city. He and a few others had gone to Dubai after sending medical certificates to the ED. After he landed at Mumbai airport, he was taken to ED office for questioning, added the reports.
