Chennai, Nov 3 (IANS): A special court in Chennai on Wednesday convicted an importer, who was allegedly a close aide of former DMK minister K.C Mani's son Mani Anbazhagan in a money laundering case, and sentenced him to seven years rigorous imprisonment.

K. Liakath Ali was found guilty in a case related to sending illegal foreign remittances. A fine of Rs 1 crore was also slapped on him, and if not paid, he will undergo one more year of imprisonment.

The court also ordered confiscation of an amount of Rs 1,75,49,253 which was attached by the Enforcement Directorate.

The Enforcement Directorate had initiated a probe in 2017 on money laundering and based on an FIR, registered by the Chennai Crime Branch in 2017, and arrested Ali on April 3, 2017.

"Ali is part of a gang operating with complete anonymity and was involved in sending the proceeds of the crime under the guise of permissible merchandise imports, without making corresponding imports into the Domestic Tariff Area (DTA), by using the forged import documents as genuine," an ED statement said.

He was arrested after it was found that he had made a foreign outward remittance of $27.86 lakh (Rs 18.66 crore) from the Thousand Lights branch of the Indian Bank in Chennai. He had opened a current account in the name of Galaxy Impex by using forged identity documents under the name 'Waseem Liakath Ali'. There was no mention of the beneficial owner either within or outside the country and end-use in the receiving nation.

Ali remained within the jail for the past 33 months for failure to meet the conditions of bail. The ED filed a charge sheet against him on June 6, 2017, and charges were framed by the court in December 2019.

The digital evidence collected by the ED during its investigations was added as admissible evidence.

This is the second case of conviction by ED in Tamil Nadu and investigations against six other entities in the same case are continuing.