Former Congress MLA Rajesh Jain helped exchange demonetised notes worth Rs 4.5 crore: Police

New Delhi: Former Congress MLA Rajesh Jain, who was arrested last month for allegedly making illegal transactions following note ban, had helped exchange demonetised notes worth Rs 4.5 crore, police said. The Crime Branch had arrested Jain for allegedly conspiring with lawyer Rohit Tandon and some others to make illegal transactions by using fake bank accounts worth Rs 50 crore. [caption id=“attachment_4257905” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] During interrogation, Jain was found to be in touch with a businessman Yogesh Mittal. Mittal was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in June for allegedly “picking up demonetised cash of Tandon during November 14-19 last year and depositing in various bank accounts of shell companies,” the police said. It was found that demonetised currency worth Rs 4.5 crore was deposited in Jain’s two bank accounts last year and he had charged a commission for getting it deposited in his account. Last year, the Crime Branch had registered a case of cheating and forgery against Tandon, Ashish, a bank manager, Kamal Jain, Dinesh Bhola, Raj Kumar Goel, RC Sharma, Yogesh Mittal and Jain. They had allegedly conspired to exchange the demonetised notes of denominations Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 for new notes and to earn a huge profit by illegal means. In a raid conducted on 10 December last year, Rs 13.5 crore was seized from a law firm’s office in southeast Delhi’s GK-I area, of which Rs 2.6 crore was in new currency notes. The raid was carried out at the office of T&T law firm owned by Tandon, against whom an FIR was registered. It was found during investigation that the forged documents and shell company accounts were used to carry out huge transactions to earn huge profits, they said. Jain has also come under the scanner of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) as part of a money laundering probe registered by it on the police FIR. It had searched his premises in May this year. Jain is also being investigated for his alleged links with businessman Gagan Dhawan, who has been arrested by the ED recently under the anti-money laundering law.