Dharwad: Ex-Oriental Insurance officer booked for money laundering

Dharwad: A complaint has been filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against ex-Oriental Insurance officer, Dharwad under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA).

The accused is T Pradeep, former Administrative Officer of Oriental Insurance Company Limited (OICL). He had allegedly misused his authority and fraudulently siphoned off the company’s fund to third party beneficiaries and converted cash worth Rs 1.39 lakh into the movable property.

The ED initiated the probe based on FIR filed by CBI, ACB, Bengaluru on April 12, 2014, after which the charge sheet was filed under Sections 420, 409, 468,471 and 477-A IPC and Sec 13(2) r/w 13(1)(c) and (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act-1988 and Section 66-C of Information Technology Act, 2000 on November 17, 2015.

Investigations have further revealed that Pradeep committed fraud by misappropriating the amount to the tune of Rs 5.03 crore by transferring cash from the company’s account to third parties during the period from July 2, 2013, to March 26, 2014.

All third party beneficiaries are fictitious and most of the amount transferred has been withdrawn in cash from different ATMs across India, the probe revealed.

On the basis of investigation conducted by ED, it has been revealed that T Pradeep committed an offence under section 3 of PMLA and is punishable under Section 4 of PMLA. The complaint has been filed before the Special Court for PMLA, Mangalore.