ED takes custody of bookie Anil Jaisinghani in 2015 money laundering case

MUMBAI: The Ahmedabad unit of Enforcement Directorate (ED) took custody of bookie Anil Jaisinghani on Thursday in a money laundering case they had registered in 2015.
Last month, the Mumbai police had arrested Jaisinghani in the Rs 10 crore extortion case lodged by deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’s wife Amruta. Jaisinghani was in jail custody at Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai from where the ED took his custody. ED took Jaisinghani to Ahmedabad for further investigation.
Last week, the special court had rejected the bail plea of Jaisinghani in the extortion case, however, granted bail to his cousin Nirmal Jaisinghani. Anil’s daughter Aniksha was granted bail in the extortion case on March 27.
Subsequently, the court had granted the ED to take custody of Anil in a money laundering case registered in Gujarat. The court had directed the superintendent of Taloja Central Prison to handover custody of accused Anil to the ED for investigation. ED team from Ahmedabad took Jaisinghani in their custody for investigation.
In 2015, the ED had registered a money laundering case over thousands of crore of rupees involving several high-profile influential bookies mainly operating from Mumbai and Gujarat. Then ED’s zonal director J P Singh who was instrumental in exposing the bookie’s syndicate and was heading the investigation had faced corruption allegation and was subsequently arrested by the CBI. It was stated that Jaisinghani had played a crucial role in making corruption allegation against Singh. After Singh’s arrest there was no major development or arrest in the case.
Jaisinghani was wanted accused in the ED‘s Ahmedabad case since last eight years. He is also wanted accused in several other cases registered against him in different states.
On February 20, Amruta Fadnavis filed an extortion case at Malabar Hill police station against Jaisinghani’s daughter Anishka. It was alleged that Anishka was in touch with Amruta for the past 16 months and also visited her residence.
In her statement to the police, Amruta had said she first met Anishka in November 2021.
Anishka (26) claimed that she was a designer of clothes, jewellery and footwear and requested Amruta to wear them at public events saying it would help her promote the products.
After gaining Amruta's trust, Anishka offered to provide her with information on some bookies through which, she claimed, they could make money.
She then directly offered Amruta Rs 1 crore to get her father, Anil Jaisinghani, off the book in a police case.
Anishka then allegedly sent Amruta video clips, voice notes and many messages from an unknown number.
Anishka along with her father Anil Jaisinghani indirectly threatened and conspired against Amruta, which led to their arrest in the case.