Shashwat Mishra – Mumbai Uncensored, 15th February 2022
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached over 1.77 crore bank deposits of Rana Ayyub in connection with a money laundering probe conducted against her for alleged irregularities in utilization of funds which the journalist collected through crowdfunding. The ED’s provisional attachment order describes in detail the chain of events and the investigation which the agency conducted.
The provisional order states that, Rana Ayyub raised a total of 2.69 crore via a crowdfunding platform, “Ketto”. These funds were raised for three campaigns, one was for the plight of slum dwellers and farmers, second for the relief work for Assam, Bihar and Maharashtra during September 2020 and third for COVID-19 affected people in the duration of May-June, 2021. These funds have been allegedly withdrawn from the bank accounts of her sister, the withdrawn amount is (37 Lakhs), Father (1.6crore), and from her own account (72 Lakhs). These funds from her sister and father’s account were then transferred to her own account.
The ED order then states that Rana had submitted documents showing expenses of 31 lakhs, however, after verification by the agency it emerged that the actual expenses only amounted to Rs. 17.6 Lakhs. The agency then alleges that Rana Ayyub has prepared fake bills to show the expenses, these expenses were shown as amount paid to certain entities and air travel expenses. The attachment order then concludes that, “Investigations conducted by Directorate of Enforcement make it abundantly clear that the funds were raised in the name of charity in a completely pre-planned and systematic manner and the funds were not utilized completely for the purpose of which the funds were raised.” The investigation then reveals that Rana Ayyub, instead of utilizing the funds crowdsourced for charity, has deposited crowdsourced funds in a separate bank account and also created a fixed deposit account of Rs. 50 Lakhs.
Thus, the ED order states, “Accordingly, at the stage of investigation, the proceeds of crime are quantified as Rs.1,77,27,704/- and the interest generated upon the said FD of Rs. 50 Lakh.”
