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Kolkata, Nov 21 (IANS) Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials have been conducting raids and search operations at various places in West Bengal and Jharkhand since Friday morning, with huge amounts of cash and gold recovered from some of the places.
Sources aware of the developments said that out of the 25 locations where raids and search operations are being conducted in West Bengal and Jharkhand, huge amounts of unaccounted cash and gold have been recovered from three locations, all of which are in West Bengal.
However, ED officials are yet to reveal the exact locations of the three places from where the cash and gold were recovered.
Sources said that while the counting of unaccounted cash of Rs 1 crore has already been completed, the process was still ongoing till the filing of the report. ED officials have also arranged for valuation of the gold seized mainly in the form of jewellery.
The exact value of total seizures on Friday will be known later in the day after the currencies are counted and the valuation of gold is completed.
The places where raids and search operations have been conducted in West Bengal include the office and residence of a high-profile contractor of Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), a subsidiary of Coal India Limited, in the coalfields of Asansol in West Burdwan district of West Bengal.
The residences of three other businessmen linked to coal business are also being raided by the Central Investigation Agency sleuths, two of them at Salt Lake on the northern outskirts of Kolkata and one at Salap Crossing in Howrah district adjacent to Kolkata.
ED and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) are conducting parallel investigations in the coal smuggling case worth crores of rupees. Recently, the CBI informed the court that the investigation in the case will be concluded soon.
The recent raids by ED officials at several places in West Bengal and Jharkhand come just days after the CBI argued in the court in this regard.
–IANS
Source/Red