Bengal cattle scam: CBI, ED confiscate properties worth Rs 11 cr of Anubrata Mondal

Kolkata, Sep 11 (IANS) The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) have jointly confiscated moveable and immovable properties worth Rs 11 crore owned by the jailed Trinamool Congress strongman Anubrata Mondal and his family members in connection with the multi-crore cattle smuggling case in West Bengal.

Sources said that two central agencied have also submitted their respective details at the Rouse Avenue Court in Kolkata, where the ED had been able to transfer all the cases pertaining to the cattle-smuggling scam following an order of a special CBI court in Asansol last week. 

The ED and CBI have also detailed how Mondal, as the TMC president in Birbhum district, used his power and influence to purchase properties from people at rates much lower than the market value.

These properties included rice mills; plots of land at prime areas adjacent to the National Highways; residential flats; and some luxury vehicles.

“If the actual market value is considering the total property confiscated by the two central probe agencies it will come to nothing less than Rs 20 crore or even more,” said one of the sources.

The two agencies, in their reports, have also detailed how the proceeds of the cattle-smuggling scam were routed through either investments in legal businesses like rice mills or via inward and outward remittances through shell companies.

Mondal is currently under judicial custody at the Tihar Jail in New Delhi.

His Sukanya Mondal, personal chartered accountant Manish Kothari and his personal bodyguard Sehgal Hossain, all of whom are accused as co-conspirators and beneficiaries in the multi-crore cattle smuggling case, have also been jailed at Tihar.