Bengal school job case: ED detects fund diversion through agricultural firms

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) probing the cash-for-school job case in West Bengal has tracked multiple small agricultural procurements-cum-marketing entities through which a portion of the proceeds were diverted in smaller amounts.

Sources said that the ED officials have identified 90 such procurement-cum-marketing entities that were used for fund diversion.

However, sources added that the total amount of fund diversion through these entities was not enormous. The total amount involved in the matter was Rs 68 crore, which means that less than Rs one crore was diverted through each of these entities.

Sources said that by cross-checking the accounts of these entities, the central agency officials found that periodically smaller amounts were deposited in their accounts through the business dealings against which these payments were not reflected in the books of accounts.

The ED officials suspect that considering the paltry amounts of payments involved with these agricultural procurement-cum-marketing entities, these entities were mainly operated by those who were in the lower rungs of the commission-basis-agent circles involved with the scam.

Precisely, sources said, this is yet another channel of money laundering that has surfaced.

Sources said multiple emails sent from the account of arrested middleman Prasanna Roy hint at how these small procurement-cum-marketing agencies were used to pay commissions to the lower-level agents.

The ED officials have confiscated some property forms of land plots or residential houses indirectly or jointly held by the former West Bengal education minister and Trinamool Congress secretary general, Partha Chatterjee and his close associates and relatives who are currently in judicial custody because of their alleged involvement in the cash-for school job case.