Terror financing: ED attaches Rs 4 cr assets of NSCN(K) leader’s wife

NEW DELHI, Oct 16:The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday said it has attached assets worth over Rs 4 crore of the wife of a leader of NSCN(K), a banned terrorist group, in a money laundering case linked to terror financing.
The attached assets, amounting to Rs 4.23 crore, are in the form of residential houses, a vehicle and balances in bank accounts and belong to Shelly N Sumi, who is the wife of NSCN(K) leader Nikki Sumi, the central probe agency said in a statement.
The NSCN(K) along with its formations and front organisations is a proscribed terrorist organisation involved in illegal activities thereby threatening the unity, integrity and security of India, it said.
Shelly N Sumi and her associates were intercepted by the troops of paramilitary force Assam Rifles on April 7, 2017 near the Karong village in Nagaland while they were travelling in a bus from Dimapur to Imphal.
It was alleged by the agencies that Shelly N Sumi was travelling to Myanmar to hand over about Rs 18.47 lakh cash to her husband.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) took over the probe of the case after the interception and the ED later filed a criminal case of money laundering and terror financing against Shelly N Sumi and others.
The NIA, in searches carried out at Shelly N Sumi’s locations, recovered another over Rs 27.90 lakh cash.
The ED said its probe found that the “NSCN(K) which is the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang), a proscribed terrorist organisation, indulged in collecting funds from government employees, businessmen by extortion and illegal means and Sumi and her associates were involved in criminal conspiracy to transfer funds to NSCN(K) via the Indo-Myanmar border.”
“Sumi is a government employee working as sectional assistant in the public works department of Nagaland and gets monthly salary of about Rs 28,000 which is the only legal income of the family of seven (Sumi and her six children),” it said.
“The details of the properties owned by Sumi, her family members and associates were unearthed and it was found they amassed huge assets in the form of a palatial house at Dimapur in Nagaland that is valued at Rs 3.6 crore, a Scorpio vehicle, a house at Zunheboto and bank balances in the name of family members,” it said.
The properties created in the name of Shelly N Sumi and her children were “acquired without any reasonable source of income and from illegally extorted money by terror activities”, the agency said. (PTI)