The Enforcement Directorate on Friday conducted searches at premises of Punjab industries minister Sanjeev Arora, his son and some others as part of a foreign exchange violation probe linked to alleged insider trading in stock markets and round-tripping of betting funds from UAE to India, officials said.
A total of 13 residential and official premises in Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Gurugram and Chandigarh are being covered under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
This includes the residences and offices of Arora, his real estate company Hampton Sky Realty Ltd (formerly Ritesh Properties and Industries Ltd) and that of Arora’s son Kavya Arora (MD of the said realty company) in Ludhiana, the officials said.
The premises of Hemanth Sood, who runs a financial investment and stock broker company named Findoc Finvest Private Ltd., in the same city and that of Jalandhar-based businessman and alleged bookie Chandra Shekhar Aggarwal were also covered.
The ED teams are being provided security cover by the jawans of a central paramilitary force, they said.
Arora, 62, posted a message on X, saying he will cooperate with the probe.
“Good Morning! An action by the Enforcement Directorate took place at my premises. As a responsible citizen, I will fully cooperate with the agencies and I am confident that the truth will prevail,” Arora, the minister for industry and commerce, said.
The MLA from Ludhiana West was earlier raided by the ED in 2024 in a money laundering case linked to alleged misuse of industrial land for residential projects. He was then a Rajya Sabha MP.
The latest action comes two days after the ED raided AAP Rajya Sabha MP Ashok Kumar Mittal, his family and educational institutions run by them in Punjab and Haryana as part of a FEMA case.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann condemned the raids against Mittal, saying the BJP has begun its “preparations” for the upcoming Assembly elections in the state.
“Democracy is being murdered. We strongly condemn it,” he said, while alleging that, “Only non-BJP governments are being harassed”.
ED offiicals said Sanjeev Arora’s realty company is under their scanner for alleged irregularities such as illegal change of land use in Punjab, booking fraudulent and inflated sales to inflate share prices, insider trading scams in stock market and roundtripping of ill-gotten funds and illegal betting money from UAE to India and so on.
Sood, whose company also has operations in Gurugram and Gujarat GIFT city, is alleged to have “partnered” with Sanjeev Arora for “round-tripping” of funds from UAE and also for alleged insider trading.
As per the agency, Sood is also alleged to have assisted some other betting and hawala operators in laundering “illicit” funds into India through the FPI (foreign portfolio investment) route.
Aggarwal, officials said, started as a cricket bookie and later expanded his operations to hawala deals. He is alleged to have launched a betting platform named “Khiladi book” which reportedly cheated thousands of people.
It is alleged by the ED that funds allegedly generated by him and parked in UAE have also been brought back into India through Findoc and invested in real estate through Sanjeev Arora.
Companies linked to Sanjeev Arora are also under scanner of the ED on charges of booking “fake” export bills and registering bogus purchases from non-existing GST entities, officials said. (PTI)
