The Enforcement Directorate has dispatched summons to the United States to question some of the office-bearers of two non-profit organisations with alleged links to Neville Roy Singham, the American tech titan whose name has cropped up during the investigation into the Chinese propaganda machinery in the NewsClick case.
Separately, the ED has once again sent summons to Singham, based in Shanghai, to depose before the agency as statements of key persons in the case point towards his alleged role in funding the activities of NewsClick and its editor Prabir Purkayastha. While the latter vehemently denies the charges, the ambit of the ED probe is widening after sources disclosed that several statements and evidence in the case point towards a larger global nexus of non-profit organisations and shell companies, allegedly running with the funds of the US millionaire, which directly or indirectly went into the unexplained FDI of Rs 9.59 crore received by way of subscription of shares of PPK Newsclick Studio Pvt Ltd, a loss-making company, at a premium from a non-existent company (registration cancelled), a US-based World Wide Media Holdings, in April 2018. The summons have been issued for January 2024.
Unlike China, India has a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with the US for legal assistance in criminal matters and it has taken this route to dispatch the summons sent by the ED to the Ministry of Home Affairs and then taken up by the Ministry of External Affairs. Sources disclosed the summons have been issued to the office bearers of two foundations with linkages to Singham’s family, through which the money was allegedly flowing in for NewsClick’s operations. While the summons by the ED through a similar diplomatic route to China did not yield any result earlier, fresh dates for the office bearers of two charities in the US and Singham to visit India and make themselves available for questioning are in January.
If Singham decides to visit India, it won’t be his first visit to New Delhi. Investigators have records of the American citizen’s frequent travels to India before the Covid pandemic. On more than one occasion he came to Delhi and also travelled to Bangalore and other cities. During these visits, sources said, he met Purkayastha and other accused in the NewsClick case. Sources said it was only after the pandemic that Singham went to Shanghai and settled there to run the operations from Chinese soil. Besides the one-time FDI to NewsClick, the money trail of remittances from nearly five companies, including more than Rs 75 crore from American arms and the individual consultancy earned by some of the accused is also under the ED scanner.
Investigators have found that the news uploaded as dispatches by the online portal did not match with the claims of alleged export of services by the accused as the online content suited certain foreign agendas, especially at a time when the Indian agencies have been raising a red flag over the CCP and its propaganda wing’s influence operations worldwide.
Beijing’s agenda and alleged anti-India activities first came under the scanner of Delhi police special cell which arrested Purkayastha and others under the anti-terror law. Sources said, Singham and Purkayastha knew each other from the time the former’s company ThoughtWorks became their meeting ground for future associations.
Whether Singham’s funding came from China or his company funds, or were they two sides of the same coin is now the big question as investigators crack the foreign nexus.
