The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday raided 23 premises in Gujarat in connection with a money-laundering case linked to an alleged GST fraud in which eight persons, including a senior journalist, were arrested earlier by the Ahmedabad police crime branch.

The premises of Mahesh Langa, the Gujarat correspondent for The Hindu who was arrested along with seven others on October 8, was also raided. Sources said about 23 premises in Rajkot, Junagadh, Ahmedabad, Bhavnagar and Veraval were raided by the ED after it registered a money-laundering case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

"The ED on Thursday registered a case under the PMLA and is probing the role of a number of other entities in the GST evasion case and the possibility of a wider conspiracy and generation of purported proceeds of crime," said an agency official.

The money-laundering case stems from an FIR registered by the crime branch against several persons and entities after the ED received a complaint from the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) against an accused company, Dhruvi Enterprise, in a case of “bogus” claim of input tax credit under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and alleged issuance of fake invoices without supply of goods between February 1 and May 1, 2023.

Mahesh Langa’s counsel has claimed that the journalist is neither a director nor promoter of a company under the scanner, DA Enterprise, which was also named in the FIR. He said the company was owned by Manoj Langa, a relative of Mahesh Langa, and Mahesh’s wife was a silent partner with no rights to undertake any transaction or access bank accounts. The police have alleged that Mahesh was running DA Enterprise in the name of his relative and wife.

“The police case hinges on a statement made by Manoj Langa that he carried out the transactions on the instructions of Mahesh Langa. There is no transaction or signature in Mahesh’s name,” according to the lawyer.

The crime branch said that more than 200 fraudulently created firms worked across the country in an “organised manner” to “defraud” the government exchequer by availing bogus input tax credits, and that forged documents and identities were used to create these firms for tax evasions.

Journalist bodies had expressed concern at his arrest. "Mahesh Langa is a well-known and fearless journalist with a career of employment in many reputed publications. His reports on developments related to Gujarat have been widely appreciated,” said a joint statement earlier issued by the Press Club of India, Delhi Union of Journalists, Indian Women’s Press Corps and the Press Association.