As the Central Bureau of Investigation carries on its probe on the multi-crore cattle smuggling scam in West Bengal, it is coming across involvement of multiple shell corporate entities which were used to divert the scam proceeds

In fact, as per agency sources, a chain of shell entities was used in the process of fund diversion where first the money was transferred first to the accounts of those entities who are at rudimentary level of the chain, and they subsequently diverted a portion of the proceeds received to multiple tertiary shell entities.

Sources said that on cross-checking accounts of those named in the charge sheet, CBI sleuths have noted transactions with four Kolkata-headquartered corporate entities, to whose accounts huge sums were transferred in phases from the accounts of those named in the charge sheet.

For the sake of investigation, sleuths are refraining from naming these four corporate entities, but confirmed that from the accounts of these four, funds, in comparatively smaller amounts, were transferred to the accounts of around 25 other corporate entities, which the central agencies believe are in the tertiary level of the chain.

The CBI sleuths are currently interacting with the officials of the bank branches where the accounts of these purported shell entities – both at the rudimentary and the tertiary levels – are being held.

The CBI had recently submitted a fresh charge sheet at a special court at Asansol in West Burdwan district, in which it named Trinamool Congress strongman and the party’s Birbhum district president Anubrata Mondal as the direct beneficiary of the cattle scam.

In the charge sheet, the CBI gave details on how Mondal and his family gained by purchasing properties for less than their actual price and subsequently selling a portion of these at market value.

In the charge sheet submitted on October 7, the CBI mentioned two separate lists – the first on properties purchased by the Mondal family between 2013 and 2022 and the second on the properties sold between 2015 and 2021.

Mondal is currently in judicial custody at the Asansol Special Correctional Home.