LUCKNOW, Nov. 5 -- In a significant money laundering conviction, a special court in Ghaziabad sentenced five people, including two who were acquitted in the original Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case, to three years of rigorous imprisonment each for laundering proceeds of a bank loan fraud involving Syndicate Bank's Gajraula branch during 2006-07. The special judge, Ghaziabad, convicted VN Mathur, Rajeev Kumar, Arvind Chaudhary, Ankit Chaudhary and Pramod Kumar under Sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, through a judgment delivered on Tuesday. Each convict was also fined Rs.50,000, with an additional three months of simple imprisonment in case of default. The conviction of Rajeev Kumar and Pramod Kumar is particularly significant as both had been acquitted in the scheduled offence prosecuted by the CBI. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) said the evidence and material independently placed before the special PMLA court established their involvement in money laundering. According to the ED investigation, VN Mathur, then branch manager of Syndicate Bank's Gajraula branch, allegedly entered into a criminal conspiracy with late Narendra Singh, Arvind Chaudhary and others during 2006-07 to fraudulently obtain loans and overdraft facilities. The loans were allegedly sanctioned to individuals, firms and their associates on the basis of forged sale deeds of non-existent properties, false non-encumbrance certificates and fabricated valuation reports. Investigators found that the loan proceeds were not used for their sanctioned purposes. Instead, the money was withdrawn in cash and routed through multiple savings bank accounts and demand drafts to conceal its origin. The proceeds of crime were subsequently invested in immovable properties, including a plot in Alipur in the then JP Nagar district (now Amroha) and another in Dehradun, to project the illegally acquired assets as legitimate property, the ED said. The agency initiated its money laundering investigation following two FIRs registered by the CBI's Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB), Ghaziabad, on a complaint by the chief vigilance officer of Syndicate Bank. In the original case, the CBI court had convicted Mathur under provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, while acquitting Rajeev Kumar and Pramod Kumar. The latest judgment establishes that acquittal in the scheduled offence did not prevent the PMLA court from examining the evidence relating to the alleged laundering of proceeds of crime and convicting the accused under the anti-money laundering law....