CHENNAI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has launched a new set of raids to check financial discrepancies in the liquor and construction sectors in Tamil Nadu.
Among the people at the centre of ED’s raids is a leading construction firm allegedly owned by Ravichandran, the brother of Tamil Nadu Municipal Administration Minister K.N. Nehru. ED officials on Monday conducted coordinated raids at several locations belonging to private contractors and developers in upmarket Chennai localities, including Teynampet, Alwarpet, CIT Colony, Besant Nagar, and MRC Nagar.
Although the agency has kept quiet on the documents recovered or those arrested, sources indicate that pivotal evidence linking suspicious financial trails has been found.
The latest action follows large-scale raids in early March against Tamil Nadu’s liquor business. On March 6, the ED raided the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC), the state-run organisation with sole rights to market Indian-made foreign Liquor (IMFL) in the state.
The March raids covered several places, ranging from TASMAC’s head office at the Thalamuthu Natarajan Building in Egmore to offices of leading liquor contractors and distilleries like SNJ Distilleries (Greams Road), Akkadu Distillers (T. Nagar), MGM-associated companies (Radha Krishnan Salai), and Coimbatore-based Shiva Distillery in Narasimhanaickenpalayam.
These activities were said to be intended at exposing a vast web of kickbacks and money-laundering scams in TASMAC’s supply and distribution network. The crackdown has gained greater prominence owing to its intersection with high-level political personalities. The ED has focused more scrutiny on organisations linked to Minister V. Senthil Balaji, who was arrested on June 14, 2023, for a different money laundering case.