The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has written to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman expressing its serious concerns as the Income Tax department excavated a huge money laundering racket by Chinese Individuals in India through shell companies. The illegal “hawala” racket to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore which was unearthed by the I-T department might go upwards for another thousands of crores of rupees as the search operations continue and this sort of racket revealed the malicious acts of the Chinese to wreck the Indian economy illegally. The CAIT once again raised questions on dubious Chinese subsidiaries which have been doing business with ecommerce companies in India and whose business activities have been under continuous doubt.
In the letter, Praveen Khandelwal, National Secretary General, CAIT, stated, “Considering the serious nature of the offence, we demand that: 1. Beside the Income Tax department, an in-depth investigation should also be conducted by the Enforcement Directorate immediately. 2. It also needs another investigation as to how the Chinese person Luo Sang which is his real identity in China and who was operating under the name of Charlie Peng (known to us through media reports) was able to secure Indian passport from Manipur and how he was able to further secure Aadhaar and PAN number through which he opened a series of bank accounts. 3. Such a huge level of money laundering through bank accounts indicates connivance of bank officials and, therefore, the bank officials concerned need to be identified and immediate action should be taken against them. We have learnt from media reports that Bandhan Bank and ICICI Bank were providing facilitation of not only the opening of bank accounts, but also helped considerably for smooth conduct of bank operations for quite a long time. As such, immediate action should be taken against all the banks who were involved in this racket and the bank officials concerned should be suspended immediately.”
“4. We have also learnt from media reports that the said Chinese individual was depositing and withdrawing crores of rupees in cash on a regular basis which amounts to abnormal bank transactions and need to be investigated whether bank(s) concernedreported this abnormal transaction to the authorities or not as per banking procedure and if the transactions were reported, then why such transactions were overlooked till now which enabled the Chinese individual to continue the unholy and illegal operations of the bank accounts and if not, then what was the motive behind keeping such transactions away from the knowledge of the other bank officials or authorities.5. It is also learnt that some of the leading e-commerce companies operating their online business activities in India are also hand-in-glovewith Chinese individuals and companies and were greatly involved in dumping of Chinese goods through their online portals. In the light of the same, we request you to order a thorough detailed investigation into this matter, pending which these suspicious portals should be suspended from conducting any business with immediate effect,” the CAIT added.
The CAIT had continually raised suspicions on multinational ecommerce companies selling cheap Chinese goods on their platforms at high discounts and predatory pricing, hence destroying the Indian retail sector. This revelation of the I-T department proves that these companies are blatantly violating India’s laws and thus, a thorough investigation is needed of their business practices to unearth the entire unholy nexus.
