ED initiated investigation under PMLA against Mohit Garg, Raj Kumar Sharma and Devendra Kumar Jha on the basis of FIR registered by Delhi Police following seizure of Rs 3.70 crore in the form of denomination currency notes of Rs 1,000.

Investigation revealed that after the announcement of demonetisation, accused Mohit Garg, Nitin Gupta, Vineet Gupta, Shobhit Sinha and Axis Bank officials had used shell companies/firms namely Beagle Marketing, Sunrise Trading Co. RD Traders, Himalayan Traders of Rajeev Singh Kushwaha for illegal exchange of demonetised currency of Vinod Deshmukh, Puneet Jain, Hemraj Singh, Pravesh Kumar Gandhi and others.

Accused Garg, Gupta and Kushwaha used to collect demonetised form of currency from different persons and deposited them in to the account of shell firms/ companies operated by the latter. This was done with the help of Axis Bank officials. The amount deposited in these shell companies/firm were further transferred to the account of different bullion traders for buying gold. Thus, they converted demonetised currency into gold/RTGS form on commission basis and illegally exchanged demonetised currency in to gold.

Earlier, two Provisional Attachment Orders (PAO) for property worth Rs 11.86 crore were issued. Properties worth Rs 3.36 crore were also seized during searches in the case. So far, total properties worth Rs 18.19 crore involved in money laundering have been attached/seized, the agency said in a statement.