The Enforcement Directorate has issued fresh summons to American millionaire businessman Neville Roy Singham for questioning in connection with a money laundering investigation linked to online news portal NewsClick, PTI reported, citing official sources on Thursday.
Singham, a US national, is accused of spreading Chinese propaganda in India and currently based out of China’s Shanghai.
The ED has issued fresh summons to Singham under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). This is a fresh notice issued to him after the agency got issued Letters Rogatory (LR) – a formal request to Chinese courts for help – from a local court seeking to record his statement, according to the sources.
The summons have been sent to Singham on his email id and through the Chinese government channels, after the ED routed them through the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
This is reportedly the second summons sent to him, the first one being issued in 2022, after probe was launched in the case in 2021.
Singham’s name hit the headlines again few months back in a New York Times article. The report claimed that the online news portal was part of a global network that received funding from Singham.
NewsClick’s premises in Delhi were first raided by the ED in September 2021 on charges of money laundering.
The Delhi Police had filed a FIR against him and the founders of NewsClick following the publishing of the article.
In a statement issued to The Hindu newspaper in October, Singham had said that the language used in the FIR filed by the Special Cell of Delhi Police “strongly suggests” that the claims were “influenced by misinformation from an article published by The New York Times.”
“The NYT intentionally chose not to publish all the factual rebuttals that I provided to them on July 22, 2023, prior to their publication date,” Singham had charged.
He also rejected the allegation of fraudulent infusion of funds through a “complex web of several entities” as mentioned in the FIR and in the NYT article.
Acting on a complaint by the Delhi Police, the ED had began the probe. In October, homes and offices of several journalists were raided, and hours later NewClick’s founder Prabir Purkayastha and its Human Resources head Amit Chakravarthy were arrested by the Delhi Police’s Special Cell.