A deputy director of the Enforcement Directorate arrested by the CBI for graft had demanded ₹5 crore from a Bhubaneswar-based businessman for settling a money-laundering case against him, sources said on Friday.

The revelation has raised questions about the functioning of the ED, which is accused of doing the Narendra Modi government’s bidding to target his critics and political
opponents.

The ED, which primarily probes money-laundering cases, has been investigating several high-profile cases involving politicians, mostly from the Opposition.

“A probe has revealed that the arrested ED deputy director, Chintan Raghuvanshi, initially demanded ₹5 crore from the businessman for settling a money-laundering case registered against him, but later settled for a ₹2-crore bribe. The accused officer had threatened to attach the businessman’s hospital and other properties if he failed to pay the first instalment of ₹50 lakh on May 28,” said a CBI official.

Raghuvanshi, a 2013 batch Indian Revenue Service officer (customs and indirect taxes), was arrested by the CBI on Thursday night following a complaint by Ratikanta Rout, who has a stone-mining and crusher business in Dhenkanal, Odisha.

The accused, the CBI official said, is being interrogated to ascertain whether he had used a similar modus operandi to receive bribes in the past.

The ED has not officially commented on the arrest, but sources in the agency said it would soon initiate disciplinary action against Raghuvanshi.

In his complaint to the CBI, Rout alleged that he had received a summons from the ED’s Bhubaneswar office last year over the registration of a money-laundering case against him. In January this year, the ED conducted raids at 14 locations in Bhubaneswar and Dhenkanal linked to Rout. The searches, the agency said, were part of an investigation into suspected illegal financial dealings by Rout’s company.

“Raghuvanshi had allegedly called Rout to his office on the day the raids were conducted and asked him to contact an individual called Bhagti, saying he could help him get relief from the ED case. The businessman alleged that he had recently met Bhagti at his guest house and the latter told him that a bribe of ₹5 crore was required to be paid to the officer to settle the matter,” the CBI official said.

“When the businessman told Bhagti that he could not pay such a huge amount, the latter connected him to Raghuvanshi via FaceTime and put him on speaker. During that call, the bribe amount was allegedly negotiated to ₹2 crore,” the official said.

In December 2023, an ED official identified as Ankit Tiwari was arrested in Chennai on the charge of demanding and accepting a bribe of ₹20 lakh from a government employee.

A month ago, the Rajasthan Anti-Corruption Bureau arrested an ED officer and his associate for allegedly taking a bribe of ₹15 lakh to settle a chit fund case.

According to the ACB, a person had lodged a complaint with the agency alleging that Naval Kishore Meena, an ED officer posted in Manipur, had been demanding ₹17 lakh for not attaching his property and not arresting him in a chit-fund scam in Imphal.

Acting on the complaint, the ACB sleuths nabbed Meena and his accomplice Babulal Meena in Jaipur while they were allegedly accepting the bribe, which was negotiated at ₹15 lakh. Following the ACB’s action, the ED suspended Naval Kishore Meena.

In December last year, CBI sleuths had raided the office and residence of an assistant director-rank ED official in Shimla in connection with a bribery case and recovered around ₹1 crore, including ₹54 lakh that he had allegedly accepted as bribe. The CBI had later said ED officials did not cooperate with the probe against the accused official.

An estimated 95 per cent of all the prominent politicians raided, booked, arrested or questioned by the ED since the Modi government came to power in 2014 have been from the Opposition.

The ED reports to the revenue department under the Union finance ministry.