The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case against 19 companies which reportedly sent more than Rs 424 crore in foreign remittances via 700 transactions, in what is being suspected to be money-laundering through shell companies.
The CBI alleged that officials of the Punjab National Bank (PNB) of Mint Street Branch in Chennai during 2015 entered into a criminal conspiracy with 19 accused companies which were account-holders in the branch, according to a Press Trust of India report.
The investigative agency said there are 700 advance remittances made for imports through various current accounts which were opened in January 2015 to May 2015, with total transactions amounting to Rs 424.58 crore.
The Finance Ministry said on Tuesday that India has frozen the bank accounts of more than 2 lakh suspected shell companies cracking down on illegal transactions and tax evasion. That came soon after authorities directed almost 2 lakh such firms to be shut down.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech on August 15 said such shell companies are looters of the nation's wealth.
Last month, market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) asked stock exchanges to take action against 331 shell companies after the Ministry of Corporate Affairs named these shell firms on its list for their engagement in money laundering and tax evasion.
The government on Wednesday said it would bar over 3 lakh directors of companies which have defaulted so there can be a significant improvement in corporate governance and a detailed scanning of the irregularities through the use of shell companies.
Earlier this week, the names of 2.1 lakh companies have been struck off by the Registrar of Companies (ROC) after about 2.97 lakh companies received notice for not filing returns and not completing other formalities related to compliance.
The Centre has cracked down on shell companies that are suspected of money laundering as a result of Modi's demonetisation drive that aimed to curb corruption and wipe out black money from the system.
The Central government had last month said a significant portion of the over Rs 15 lakh crore of money deposited at banks after the demonetisation drive could be black money.
