Overview

• The Enforcement Directorate carried out searches at eight locations in Hyderabad on July 30 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act into alleged irregularities in the 2017 Sheep Rearing Development Scheme
• Raids targeted premises linked to beneficiaries and middlemen, including G. Kalyan Kumar, former OSD to ex-Minister Talasani Srinivasa Yadav, and Sabavath Ramachander, former MD of the Telangana State Sheep and Goat Development Cooperative Federation
• A December 2023 ACB FIR cited proceeds of ₹2.1 crore, but a 2021 CAG audit covering seven districts estimated losses of ₹253.93 crore and projected state-wide fraud could exceed ₹1,000 crore
• Investigators seized documents and digital records detailing inflated procurement bills, fake transport invoices, duplicate sheep tags and benami transactions linked to cooperative and department files
• The ED’s expanding probe builds on prior ACB arrests and audit findings as it seeks to map the full scale of alleged money laundering through the welfare scheme