A Delhi court on Monday sent Delhi Minister Satyendar Jain to 14-day judicial custody in an alleged money laundering case.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had last week (June 7) seized cash amounting to Rs 2.85 crore, 133 gold coins weighing 1.80 kg from unexplained sources besides incriminating documents, digital records during raids at the premises of the arrested Delhi Minister and others.

The ED conducted raids against Jain as part of a money-laundering probe linked to an alleged hawala dealings case being conducted against him, officials had said. The raids, including that at the residential premises of Jain in Delhi and other locations, are being conducted as part of a "follow up" in the case, they said.

Jain, 57, was arrested on May 30 under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The agency is understood to have found some new evidence and links after it questioned Jain and some alleged hawala operators over the last few days.

In April, the ED had attached assets worth Rs 4.81 crore of Jain's family and companies "beneficially owned and controlled" by him as part of the probe.

The probe found that "during 2015 and 2016, when Satyendar Kumar Jain was a public servant, the companies beneficially owned and controlled by him received accommodation entries to the tune of Rs 4.81 crore from shell (paper) companies against cash transferred to Kolkata-based entry operators through the hawala route". "These amounts were utilised for direct purchase of land or for repayment of loan taken for the purchase of agricultural land in and around Delhi," the ED said. The named persons in the attachment order are associates and family members of Jain, officials had said.

The money laundering case against the AAP minister stems from an August 2017 FIR filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against him and others on charges of alleged possession of disproportionate assets. A charge sheet was filed by the CBI in December 2018 stating that the alleged disproportionate assets were valued at Rs 1.47 crore, about 217 percent more than his known sources of income, during 2015-17.

The Income Tax Department too had probed these transactions and had issued an order attaching "benami assets" allegedly linked to Jain.

(Edited by : Priyanka Rathi)