ED raids ex-Uttar Pradesh minister Gayatri Prajapati, family

Lucknow: The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday raided over a dozen locations in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Maharashtra as part of an ongoing money money laundering investigation against former Uttar Pradesh minister Gayatri Prajapati and his family members, official sources said.

A total of 14 premises in Lucknow and Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Mumbai in Maharashtra are being covered.

Raids are being carried out at Prajapati's house in Lucknow, the sources said.

The money laundering case, filed by the ED in 2021, stems from an Uttar Pradesh vigilance department FIR against Prajapati and those linked to him on charges of illegal sand mining and possession of disproportionate assets among others.

The central agency had in January attached four Mumbai flats and multiple land parcels in Lucknow, worth more than Rs 13 crore of Prajapati, his family members and associates. The action came after the ED conducted searches.

Prajapati, while holding the post of mining minister of Uttar Pradesh, misused his official position and acquired huge assets disproportionate to his source of income in the name of his family members and other close associates/friends which was not commensurate to their known sources of income, the ED had said.

The former minister and his family members laundered the illicit funds generated during his tenure as a minister in the Uttar Pradesh government through various "fictitious and sham" transactions and acquired multiple assets, it alleged.

"He also used bank accounts of his family members to deposit the illegitimate cash, earned by him for his illegal gains," the agency had said.