ED arrests Baneet Talwar, brother of 2021 Mundra drug bust key accused Kabir Talwar

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Delhi resident Baneet Singh Talwar, the brother of Harpreet Singh Talwar alias Kabir Talwar -- a key accused in the 2021 drug bust at Mundra port in Gujarat -- in connection with large-scale smuggling of drugs concealed in semi-processed talc in Delhi, Punjab and Haryana, the federal agency said on Saturday.

The Mundra port drug bust involved around 3,000 kg of Afghan heroin worth ₹21,000 crore. Intercepted in September 2021, it was one of the biggest consignments ever to enter India via the maritime route. HT had exclusively reported the drug bust in 2021.

Harpreet Singh Talwar alias Kabir Talwar, a clubbing tycoon from Delhi, was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in August 2022 and later charged with participating in a conspiracy backed by Pakistan's spy agency, the ISI, to smuggle high-quality drugs into India via the maritime route.

The ED said in a statement on Saturday that Baneet Talwar "continued to manage and operate business entities under the beneficial control of Harpreet Singh Talwar even after the latter was arrested in the NIA case".

"He provided funds of more than ₹55 lakhs to an entity controlled by Harpreet Singh Talwar and involved in narcotics smuggling. Financial analysis revealed multiple instances of round-tripping of funds, wherein Harpreet Singh Talwar infused proceeds of crime into various business entities, which in turn reached Baneet Singh Talwar through multiple layers of transactions. The transactions involved matching and mirror entries across different entities, indicating a structured flow of funds," the ED statement said.

The agency also said Baneet Talwar "used cash deposits to finance the purchase of vehicles in the names of benami entities", which had been earlier seized by it.

"He had also parked proceeds received from Harpreet Singh Talwar to acquire immovable properties, the benefits of which continue to be enjoyed by Harpreet and family," the agency added.

Baneet Talwar, the ED said, was taken into custody on Friday under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) "in connection with large-scale smuggling of narcotics, concealed in semi-processed talc, alongside linked narcotics seizures across Delhi, Punjab, and Haryana". He was produced before a court in Delhi, which remanded him to ED custody for five days.

The NIA, which is probing a terror-narcotics conspiracy linked to the Mundra drug bust, has already filed six chargesheets. The anti-terror probe agency had found that several Indian accused persons conspired with an international drug-smuggling syndicate based in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Dubai, operating under the mastermind, Vitaysh Koser alias Raju Dubai, who is a wanted accused, along with Pakistani ISI agents and Afghan nationals.

The ED said on Saturday that proceeds worth ₹76 crore generated from the illegal sale of narcotic drugs "have been transferred via hawala to Afghanistan and used for funding terrorist activities".

It has so far identified proceeds of crime totalling ₹89 crore, generated through contraband smuggling, drug-sale proceeds siphoned to Afghanistan through hawala, and goods received in kind.

Earlier, the NIA had claimed in 2022 that, at a time when a Pakistan-backed syndicate was seeking to push huge quantities of drugs stockpiled in Afghanistan during the Covid-19 pandemic amid uncertainty over the Taliban's takeover of the country, Harpreet Singh alias Kabir Talwar used the opportunity to smuggle drugs to India through his companies, as he saw "low risk and high returns in the illegal business".

Talwar was handsomely compensated for facilitating the smuggling of "hundreds of kilograms of heroin" through ports, the proceeds of which were intended to fund the terrorist activities of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Hizbul Mujahideen, the NIA had said.

HT could not locate a legal representative of Baneet Talwar.