The Enforcement Directorate conducted searches on Monday at the premises of DMK leader and Tamil Nadu Higher Education Minister K Ponmudy and his MP son Gautham Sigamani in a money laundering case linked to alleged illegal sand mining, official sources said.
The agency, according to the sources, recovered around Rs 70 lakh in cash and some pounds from the premises of the minister. The statements of the father-son duo may also be recorded during the searches.
The 72-year-old minister is the second in the cabinet of Chief Minister M K Stalin to come under the scanner of the federal probe agency after Transport Minister Senthil Balaji. Balaji was raided and arrested by the ED in June as part of an alleged cash-for-jobs-linked money laundering case investigation. The raids are being undertaken at the premises of the two in the state capital, Chennai, and in Ponmudy’s stronghold of Villupuram, they said.
