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Coimbatore
Mining baron Sekhar arrested by enforcement directorate for money laundering
March 21, 2017
Chennai: For mining baron Sekar Reddy, once very powerful and mighty, stars are definitely unfavorable as he was arrested by the enforcement directorate officials on Monday evening for alleged money laundering. He was earlier arrested in December but was out on bail.
He was lodged in jail after he was arrested in December following a raid on his premises that yielded a rich haul of new currency notes of Rs 2000 denomination, gold and other valuables. Along with him, his business partner Srinivasulu was also picked up as was his associate Prem Kumar. The threesome was arrested after a marathon questioning lasting some 12 hours then.
The raids were carried out by Income Tax department, which found cash in old and new currency notes of higher denomination. Reddy and two others were again arrested on Monday evening, this time by the enforcement directorate, on charges of money laundering. They were produced before a magistrate, who remanded them in judicial custody till April 28.
Sekar Reddy is very well connected with Tamil Nadu politicians and bureaucrats and he was also on the board of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams that runs the revered temple of Lord Balaji at Chithoor in Andhra Pradesh. During the IT raids, a sum of Rs 130 crore in old and new currency notes were recovered from his premises, besides over 100 kg of gold.
Incidentally, the IT turned its attention to Sekar after raids on the offices and residential premises of the then chief secretary P Ramamohana Rao. Sekar is known to be very close to the former chief secretary who has since been removed from the post.
According to sources, the IT officials had a riach haul of Rs 30 lakh in cash (new currencies), five kgs of gold and undisclosed assets worth Rs 5 crore.
The enforcement directorate said in a statement that Reddy had told the agency during questioning that the cash seized by the IT personnel belonged to his SRS mining company and admitted that it was unaccounted money. Reddy is yet to come out with details as to the source of the new currency notes.
