17 convicted in Punjab for drugs linked money laundering

Chandigarh: A special PMLA court in Punjab's Mohali on Tuesday convicted 17 people, including "kingpin" Jagdish Singh alias Bhola, in a drugs linked money laundering case, official sources said.

Bhola, a wrestler-turned-policeman-turned-"drug mafia", has been sentenced to 10 years in jail apart from another accused Avtar Singh Taro.

The federal probe agency had filed a charge sheet against 24 accused in 2015 out of which seven were either declared proclaimed offenders or died (resulting in abatement of proceedings) during the course of investigation or trial, the sources said.

This is one case where all the accused, as many as 17, named in a charge sheet have been convicted under the anti-money laundering law, they told PTI.

Apart from Bhola and Taro, others convicted are Sundeep Kaur, Jagminder Kaur, Gurpreet Kaur, Gurmeet Kaur, Sukhjit Singh Sukha, Sukhraj Singh, Gurdeep Singh Manchanda, Amarjeet Kaur, Devinder Singh, Maninder Singh, Subhash Bajaj, Sunil Bajaj, Ankur Bajaj, Dalip Singh Mann and Manpreet Singh.

The Bhola drugs money laundering case pertains to a multi-crore synthetic narcotics racket that was unearthed during 2013-14 in Punjab.

The ED arrested Bhola in January, 2014 in a case filed on the basis of Punjab Police FIRs.