ED raids continue over Tamil Nadu ‘sand mining scam’
Offices and residences of industrialists S Ramachandra, Karikalan and Dindigul Rathinam, who hold sand mining licenses, are also being raided by the agency, officials added
Chennai
Several teams of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) continued their searches at sand mining sites, sales depots and other locations suspected to be involved in a sand mining scam across Tamil Nadu for the second day on Wednesday, even as, minister S Durai Murugan who holds the mining portfolio denied having any information about the raids.
On Tuesday, ED officials arrived at more than 25 locations to investigate allegations of money laundering in the sale of a huge quantity of sand mined from riverbeds and sold at designated sand depots or sales points managed by the TN water resources department. They also raided the office of the Public Works Department (PWD) in Chennai on Tuesday, which were still underway till the time of filing the report, officials said.
Over the last 24 hours, the searches were carried out in Tiruchi, Namakkal, Vellore and Karur, officials said.
“I don’t know anything about it,” Murugan said responding to a reporter’s question about the ED raids at the PWD office in Chennai.
Offices and residences of industrialists S Ramachandra, Karikalan and Dindigul Rathinam, who hold sand mining licenses, are also being raided by the agency, officials added.
Tamil Nadu ministers have been on the radar of the ED recently. The agency arrested minister Senthil Balaji on June 14 on charges of money laundering in a case dating back to 2014. Later, the agency questioned higher education minister K Ponmudi and his son Gautham Sigamani, a parliamentarian, in July.
The ED had then said that its probe in this case revolves around an “alleged issuance of red sand mining licences at five locations illegally by Ponmudy, who was the minister for mines” between 2007 and 2011. Ponmudi had issued illegal licences for red sand mining to his son, relatives and some benami holders, and that a huge amount of hawala funds generated from this mining business was used to purchase companies abroad, the agency said.
