PATIALA: The Mohali based special CBI court of Punjab, which is also the designated court to hear cases under the Prevention of the Money Laundering Act (PMLA) 2002 on Saturday forwarded the 'letter of request' to the Union government for external affairs seeking details of properties owned by as many as 18 accused in Punjab's multi-crore synthetic drug racket in Canada and the UK.The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in August moved the 'letter of request' in the court, under Section 57 of the PML Act, seeking details of properties owned by the accused in Canada and the UK. Deciding on the application, the court on Saturday forwarded the same to the Union ministry for external affairs to open diplomatic channels and ask Canada and the UK to collect all property details of the accused and furnish the same to the Indian government.Deputy Director of ED, Niranjan Singh, said during investigations they had stumbled upon clues hinting that some of the accused in the drug racket had parked a huge amount of money in properties in the UK and Canada. The ED suspects that the money that had been used to buy these properties was the ‘proceeds of the crime’ committee by wrestler turned cop turned drug kingpin Jagdish Bhola and his associates.Special Public prosecutor Jagjitpal Singh Sarao said the ‘letter of request’ had been moved before the court in August, last year, in which the ED had named 18 accused. He said it was for the first time that such a request has been moved in the court which was possible only under the PML Act. Sarao said as per the investigations carried out by the ED, money generated from drug trade had been parked invariably in immovable and moveable assets both within the country and abroad. While the properties within the country can be verified by the ED, help had to be taken by the authorities of the UK and Canada to cross verify these properties that were bought in these two countries.In the letter of request, the ED had provided a list of the persons who are suspected of having bought properties in Canada and UK from the proceeds of the crime. The ED had also put before the court a list of properties, both movable and immovable, which the accused had made within the country and abroad.