The Enforcement Directorate has begun a probe into alleged money laundering by Dr Amit Kumar, alleged kingpin in the multi-crore rupee kidney transplant racket, and will seek an explanation on the mode of receiving payment from his foreign patients.
Sources in the Directorate said on Wednesday that a notice will be served to Kumar after a decision was taken to lodge a complaint under Foreign Exchange Management Act against him after the CBI handed over some documents showing investments made by the doctor abroad, especially Canada.
The documents included papers relating to alleged stashing of money by Kumar in Canada and recovery of foreign currency from his possession in Nepal where he was arrested on February seven last.
Foreign currency of Euro 1,45,000, $18,900 and an Indian bank draft of Rs 9,36,000 were seized from him when he was arrested in Nepal.
The ED has also collected the data from the Income Tax department, which allegedly showed some discrepancies by Kumar in showing the income generated from his foreign clients in his annual returns, they said.
The requests of the Enforcement Directorate were to be included in the Letters Rogatory, being sent by the CBI to various countries including Canada, Greece and Turkey to get an estimate of the amount transferred overseas.
Among other information, the CBI and Enforcement Directorate would like to know is his property and other financial details of Kumar, who had several foreign patients, in Canada.
The two agencies suspect Kumar had stashed a part of his earnings abroad. His family is also believed to be residing in that country.
The CBI also wants to know the name of the patients from Turkey and Greece who had come for kidney transplantation to Kumar and the mode of payment by them.
CBI sources said some donors had been examined by its sleuths and prima-facie it seemed they had been lured into selling their organs.
The agency has already booked Kumar and others under sections 420 (cheating), 342 (illegal confinement), 326 (causing grievous hurt), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC and section 18 and 19 of Transplantation of Human Organs Act of 1994.
