The officers discovered that the companies have been exporting artificial diamonds to Karolina Trading India Company based mostly at Sachin Special Economic Zone (SEZ) however passing them off as pure excessive worth diamonds.

This comes after 4 businessmen have been arrested by the DRI from Sachin SEZ on December 14, 2021. One amongst these arrested was discovered with minimize and polished pure diamonds price Rs 1.34 crore. He was recognized as Rakesh Rampuria, a companion in Karolina Trading India Company. The DRI later raided the corporate and arrested Rampuria’s two companions, Vikas Chopra and Sagar Shah. A person from Mumbai, recognized as enterprise companion Chirag Bagadiya, was additionally arrested. All 4 are at the moment out on bail.

An official, who was a part of the raid at Karolina in Surat, mentioned, “Through the Ministry of External Affairs, we requested Hong Kong customs authorities to carry out further procedures. We shared names and addresses of the 24 firms that have carried out export and import of diamonds with Karolina.”

As per the modus operandi, the 5 Hong Kong-based firms bought artificial diamonds as high-value pure ones to the companies in India. The purchaser in India transferred the cash into 13 financial institution accounts belonging to the businesses. Officials mentioned the businesses carried out round 130 transactions with Karolina in 2021, laundering 500 million Hong Kong {dollars}.

“As per the documents seized from Karolina, diamonds worth Rs 1,016 crore were imported from 11 Hong Kong-based firms in 2021. But the real value of diamonds imported was Rs 8 crore. The documents also show that Karolina exported diamond jewellery and loose diamonds worth Rs 915 crore to 11 firms in Hong Kong. During interrogation, the accused confessed that till date they have been involved in outward remittance worth Rs 675 crore,” mentioned an official.