The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) has written to the State Government requesting to provide details of river sand mining and sales in Tamil Nadu Since April 2021, official sources said on Wednesday.
The central agency had written to the authorities in the Water Resources Department calling for the details pertaining to river sand mining, stock yards, modalities of sale and role of officials and private persons in the business, the sources said.
Last Tuesday, ED officials spread into several teams carried out simultaneous searches at 34 locations, including 8 sand mining sites, across 6 districts in the State. Acting on First Information Reports which disclosed “huge illegal mining of river sand”, the officials searched the premises of three businessmen S. Ramachandran, K. Rathinam and Karikalan and Auditor P. Shanmugaraj.
Backed by Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) personnel, they also visited the office of the Engineer-in-Chief/Chief Engineer, Water Resources Department, to collect documents relating to the case.
While investigating allegations that a group of private persons had taken over the mining and sale of river sand and that a huge quantity of sand was sold illegally causing revenue loss to the Central and State Governments, the officials seized CCTV data storage devices and hard-discs of computers used to handle online booking of sand sale and enter details of income, the sources said.
Besides, ED said in a statement that incriminating documents, including diaries, counterfeit QR codes, fake receipts etc and evidence of companies and benami transactions were also found during the searches that went on for a couple of days.
The teams were also trying to access the CCTV data at toll plazas along highways and other sources to gather the details of lorries that visited the stock yards for purchasing sand on a regular basis. The agency is probing a money laundering angle emerging out of gains made out of GST evasion, the sources said.
Investigators were in the process of issuing summons to Ramachandran, Rathinam, Karikalan and their associates to examine their role as private persons in river sand mining and sales. They would also gather evidence from lorry operators and functionaries of lorry owners’ associations on how they purchased sand from the Water Resources Department over the months, the sources added.
