Channi's nephew confessed to his crime, show ED documents

Atul Krishan

New Delhi, Feb 5 (IANS) The ED has claimed in its document accessed by IANS that Bhupinder Singh Honey, the nephew of Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, allegedly used to take money from officials in lieu of their choice of transfer and posting.

Honey was placed under arrest on Friday night by the ED in connection with a Prevention of Money Laundering case pertaining to illegal mining in Punjab.

"Moreover, Bhupinder Singh has explicitly stated in his statement during search, inter-alia, that all cash which was seized from his residential premises at Ludhiana (Rs. 4.09 crores), Sandeep Kumar's premises at Ludhiana (Rs 1.99 Crores) and from the Homeland House Premises at Mohali (Rs. 3.89 crores) actually pertained to him. He admitted to have generated such proceeds of crime through mining related activities including clearance of mining files and transfer of officials," read the ED document accessed by IANS.

Sources claimed that since he was close to Channi, he was using the political connection to earn a huge amount of money.

Honey is currently in the ED's custody where a team of officials are interrogating him. His family has been allowed by the court to meet him once for an hour everyday.

According to ED documents accessed by IANS, Honey has confessed that it was his Rs ten crore which were recovered by the ED during raids.

The Enforcement Directorate has alleged that he was making money from illegal mining too.

On January 18, the ED had conducted raids at ten different locations including Homeland Heights which is the residence of Honey.

The ED continued raids at different places for two days and recovered incriminating documents.

Honey was asked to appear at the ED's zonal office in Jalandhar. He had to record his statement in connection with the ongoing probe.

The ED officials had recorded the statement of Kudrat Deep Singh, the business partner of Honey.

The ED officials had said that they seized incriminating documents pertaining to illegal sand mining, property transactions, cell phones, gold worth above Rs 21 lakhs and a watch worth Rs 12 lakhs and cash Rs 10 crore during the raid.

A source said that the documents recovered by them have confirmed that Kudrat Deep Singh was running two firms and Bhupinder Singh Honey was joint director in them.

As per sources, the firms are basically shell companies but the ED has found a lot of money transactions. One of the firms is Provider Overseas Consultancy Limited, which was incorporated in 2018 with 33.33% equal shares.

The ED case is on the basis of a two year old FIR.

On the basis of this FIR of the Punjab Police, the ED conducted raids at ten different locations including one belonging to Bhupinder Singh Honey.

The Punjab Police had on March 7, 2018, lodged a case against more than ten accused.

The ED initiated a money laundering probe on the basis of this FIR pertaining to illegal sand mining in Punjab in November last year.

The FIR has been accessed by IANS which was filed under several sections of the IPC.

Bhupinder Singh Honey was not named in the Punjab Police's FIR and Kudrat Deep Singh was given a clean chit in the matter.

The ED found that money was being laundered by the accused and they started probing the matter.