Telgi invested scam money in soya business: CBI

Probe into the activities of scamster Abdul Karim Telgi, who is being questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with the printing of fake stamp papers, has led the agency in establishing that he had been investing the proceeds from fake stamps racket into ventures like "soya oil" and "suran" vegetable.

During his custodial interrogation, Telgi told CBI that he had no idea of where to invest the enormous proceeds he got from printing of fake stamps and stamp papers so he hired two consultants for finding some business ventures, official sources said.

They said that Telgi later came to Madhya Pradesh and evinced keen interest in the Soya business and invested in it.

He opened couple of front companies including one "Malwa Enterprises", which was entrusted with sending raw Soya from Indore to Bangalore for extracting oil.

The amount of money parked by Telgi in this business was being probed by the CBI, they said.

Telgi had also shown interest in investing in trading of "suran" vegetable as they had a long shelf-life.

The CBI has also detected Telgi's involvement in petrol and diesel adulteration racket.

His involvement came to fore after CBI raids on the India Security Press at Nashik where the agency found documents leading towards Telgi.

The CBI was scrutinising the documents, which showed that eight companies were allegedly owned by Telgi in Mumbai. Documents from anti-adulteration department of oil companies were also being scrutinised, the sources said.

Many of these are in fact defunct companies and are clandestinely diverting raw materials like Naptha, Kerosene, Benzene solvents for adulteration of motor spirits, the sources said.

The CBI, in its FIR, has named Telgi and an IOC officer Nirmal Singh besides five companies allegedly belonging to the scamster.