NEW DELHI: Enforcement Directorate Tuesday carried out searches in Kolkata to probe the purchase of an aircraft — Embraer 600 — and an Agusta 109 SP helicopter for Rs 112 crore by Kolkata-based Carewell Aviation India Pvt Ltd, and Rs 160 crore it allegedly had got from TMC.This aviation company, incorporated in Sept 2021 after TMC came to office for the third time in Bengal with 215 seats, had rented the Embraer and the chopper to TMC as it received funds during 2023 and 2026. Searches were conducted at five places in Kolkata in connection with alleged dishonest financial dealings, sources said. Searches were conducted over unlawful collection of money and routing of suspected funds through certain bank accounts of TMC,” sources said. A senior official said the premises searched belonged to Carewell group of companies. “It has been revealed that around Rs 160 crore was transferred from TMC accounts to Carewell Aviation India Pvt Ltd and its related entity, possibly between April 2023 and June 2026. Carewell Aviation routed Rs 82.9 crore to another newly incorporated related entity in this period,” he added. TOI reached out to Carewell Aviation but there was no response. Sources said ED’s preliminary investigation revealed Carewell transferred significant amounts into a related entity to purchase Embraer Legacy 600, an aircraft suspected to have been largely used by a top TMC neta. The company also used funds to buy a chopper, Agusta 109 SP. ED is probing “foreign funding” used to buy the chopper. However, most of the funds have been sourced directly from TMC accounts, the source added. “The Embraer Legacy aircraft and the Agusta helicopter were rented out to TMC itself, even though they were purchased allegedly from the corpus of TMC,” a source said.
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