NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate ’s (ED) latest action where it has attached a sprawling bungalow owned by a former UP engineer in Lutyen’s Delhi’s tony Prithviraj Road has revealed more skeletons. The money trail in the case shows the ill-gotten cash made by the official has surpassed the payoffs detected so far in the 2G scam like Rs 200 crore windfall gains by DMK-run Kalaignar TV.

According to ED, through 66 fictitious bank accounts and a maze of shell companies, Arun Kumar Mishra , chief engineer with UP State Industrial Development Corporation ( UPSIDC ), laundered over Rs 225 crore between 2006 and 2007. The ED case file reveals the entire sum is graft money and circulated much the same way as in the case of 2G scam.

In the 2G scam, Rs 200 crore were allegedly given to Kalaignar TV by Shahid Balwa’s Swan Telecom using a circuitous route that ED says amounted to laundering.

ED had earlier attached a 6,796 sq ft bungalow on Prithviraj Road belonging to Mishra. Though Mishra claims to have bought it for only Rs 24 crore, the actual market value of the property is pegged 10 times higher. Even going by the circle rate in the area, the property is anywhere between Rs 100 crore and Rs 150 crore.

According to ED, Mishra’s foray into circulating alleged corruption money started in 2000-01 when in cahoots with officials from Punjab National Bank he started opening fictitious accounts at various branches in Dehradun and Haridwar. At that time, he was posted in Dehradun as executive engineer with UPSIDC. By 2005-06, he had 66 such accounts in which over Rs 26 crore were deposited via cash transactions over a period of time.

However, it was in 2006-07, when Mishra was looking after the development of Tronica City — an industrial and residential township stretching over 1,400 acres in Ghaziabad — is where he allegedly laundered bulk of his ‘ill-gotten’ money.

By October-December 2006, Mishra allegedly closed all the fictitious accounts and withdrew all the money. Almost simultaneously, he allegedly created a maze of 14 shell companies in Kolkata and started investing crores in them. Between September 2006 and May 2007, Rs 225.45 crore was invested in these companies, according to ED.

The ED provisional attachment order says, “In these so acquired companies, investments of ill-gotten money were made, in the form of share money etc. and the nominees/relatives of Mishra were inducted as directors or authorized signatories.”

Mishra also allegedly floated two NGOs with his close relatives and associates as office-bearers. In one of them, he was the president in 2002.

