The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday attached ₹152.31crore worth assets belonging to several people, including Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel’s deputy secretary Saumya Chaurasia and IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi, as part of its probe into a money laundering case linked to a purported coal levy scam.
In a statement, the federal agency said an amount of over ₹500 crore was extorted in the last two years by the accused in the case. It added that it conducted searches at more than 75 locations, including the mining departments of collectors’ offices in Korba and Raigarh regions, and gathered incriminating evidence against the accused.
“ED conducted searches at more than 75 locations, including the mining departments at collector offices of Korba and Raighad and collected incriminating evidence. ED has recorded statements of around 100 individuals and the investigation revealed that as part of a grand conspiracy, policy changes were made and director, mining, issued a government order on 15.7.2020 to modify an existing efficient online system of issuance of transport permits, to introduce a manual layer where coal users were forced to apply for no-objection certificate (NOC) with state mining officers,” the statement said.
“Since Tiwari’s employees were spread across the state, they maintained WhatsApp groups, excel sheets of each coal delivery order and the extorted amounts and shared them with Suryakant Tiwari, who in turn maintained detailed…
