ED attaches Rs 26 crore worth assets of arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari

NEW DELHI: Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday confirmed to have seized Rs 26.61 crore assets of arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari under the FEMA law.

Earlier, the ED had said it had attached properties worth Rs 21 crore belonging to controversial arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari in Delhi over his involvement in a money laundering case.

The Enforcement Directorate had said the assets, including commercial properties in Panchsheel Shopping Complex, Panchsheel Park, residential house in Vasant Vihar in south Delhi and another house in Gurugram, were registered in his name, his wife's name as well as the various companies he ran.

Some jewellery and bank deposits of Bhandari were also seized.

The ED had said Bhandari has acquired assets worth over Rs 150 crore outside India, which he had not declared for taxation purposes before the Income Tax authorities.

Earlier this year, the Income Tax department had also booked Bhandari under the new and stringent anti-black money Act and was mulling attaching his foreign and domestic assets as part of a tax evasion probe against him.

Officials had said the agency slapped provisions of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015 in addition to the case being probed against him as per the existing Income Tax Act of 1961.

They said the department had identified about half-a-dozen foreign assets in the name of Bhandari and his associates.

Under the new anti-black money law, cases of overseas illegal assets, which till recently were probed under the Income Tax Act, 1961, attract a steep 120 per cent tax and penalty on undisclosed foreign assets and income, besides carrying a jail term of up to 10 years.