The controversial meat exporter Moin Qureshi was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with money laundering probe against him and others on Friday night. The arrest was made under the provisions
of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and would be produced before a court today, they said, alleging that he was not cooperating in the probe. Qureshi has been questioned more than once by ED in the past after two FIRs were registered against him under the PMLA. In the latest FIR against him this year, former CBI Director A P Singh has also been named, as per PTI. The records collected by the ED from the Income Tax (I-T) Department, in the form of BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) messages, has “revealed that Qureshi has taken huge amount of money from different persons for obtaining undue favours from public servants after exercising his personal influence”, it said. If you don’t know who is Moin Qureshi, here are 5 things you should know:

1. Moin Akhtar Qureshi studied at Dehradun’s Doon School and St Stephen College before opening Akhtar a small slaughterhouse in Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur.

2. In a short span of time, he became the largest meat exporter in India. He opened as many as 25 companies but the flagship company remained AQM which exports meat.

3. Moin Qureshi is alleged to be the biggest tax evader. He reportedly has stashed away Rs 200 crore abroad.

4. In the build up to the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had attacked Qureshi by saying that he is safe only because of Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

5. He came under the scanner of I-T after the grand marriage of his daughter. Now, Qureshi is under the scanner of many investigating agencies.

The I-T Department is probing Qureshi under the new Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015 as probe led it to few foreign assets owned or held by the meat exporter and his family in an alleged illegal manner as they were not declared or reported to Indian tax authorities. The case emerged after the tax department first carried out searches against Qureshi and his firm in February, 2014.