Rs 2,161-crore liquor scam : ED arrests Baghel’s son

way2barak July 19: Chaitanya Baghel, son of former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister and Congress leader Bhupesh Baghel, was arrested on Friday by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) on charges of money laundering in connection with the alleged Rs 2,161-crore liquor scam.

He was subsequently produced before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Raipur and remanded in ED custody for five days.

According to the ED, the alleged scam involved a syndicate of senior state bureaucrats, politicians, and excise department officials who are accused of running a “parallel” excise department, wherein liquor was sold to the public, but no money came to the state exchequer, causing the government a loss of around Rs 2,161 crore. It is alleged to have taken place between 2019 and 2022, during the previous Congress government in Chhattisgarh that was helmed by Bhupesh Baghel.

Around 7 am on Friday, the ED began searches at the Baghel residence at Bhilai city in Durg district. At around noon, the agency arrested Chaitanya.

Speaking to the media, Chaitanya’s lawyer Faisal Rizvi said, “This matter has been going on since 2022. The first prosecution complaint (filed by the ED) was submitted in court, following which three more supplementary prosecution complaints were submitted… but neither was Chaitanya’s name mentioned nor was his statement recorded in them.”

The ED’s counsel, Saurabh Kumar Pandey, said, “We were continuously collecting evidence in the liquor scam, and we found some evidence that Chaitanya Baghel has layered a lot of money and proceeds of crime.” He alleged there was evidence that Chaitanya helped the liquor scam “syndicate” launder approximately Rs 1,000 crore proceeds of crime, and that he himself got Rs 13 crore.

Bhupesh Baghel said the ED action on Friday was an attempt to prevent him from raising in the Assembly the issue of trees being felled for a coal mine project by the Adani Group in the Tamnar tehsil of the state’s Raigarh district.