An official of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) was reportedly injured after a team of the probe agency he was part of was attacked during investigation of a cyber fraud case in Delhi’s Bijwasan area on Thursday. The ED officer suffered minor injuries during the attack and continued with the searches after he was given first aid, officials said.
The official injured in the attack was identified as additional director of ED, according officials cited in reports.
The ED team had reportedly gone to a farmhouse in Delhi’s Bijwasan to raid a chartered accountant (CA) in connection with its probe into a cyber app fraud case. On reaching, the ED team was allegedly attacked by the suspect, identified as Ashok Sharma, and his family.
“Five people were there and one of them ran away. The premises are secured and an FIR is being filed. One additional director of ED was injured in the incident,” the probe agency said.
The ED said that the raids, launched by its High-Intensity Unit (HIU), followed an investigation that uncovered the laundering of illicit funds generated from thousands of cybercrimes, including phishing scams, QR code fraud, and part-time job scams.
“The Enforcement Directorate’s High-Intensity Unit (HIU) launched extensive searches today targeting top chartered accountants allegedly linked to a massive cybercrime network operating across India. The raids follow an investigation that uncovered the laundering of illicit funds generated from thousands of cybercrimes, including phishing scams, QR code fraud, and part-time job scams,” ED said.
Visuals from the scene showed a broken piece of furniture on the floor in what looked like a living room of a house.
The ED team went to the local police station over the matter, after which the cops have launched a manhunt for the accused.
Details on the case
According to information accessed by Hindustan Times, the ED carried out raids on several chartered accountants.
With the help of I4C and FIU-IND, thousands of reported crime instances were analysed in totality, the ED said, adding that it was found that crime money was being layered into 15000 mule accounts.
“Then Debit/Credit cards were obtained. Using these cards, money was remitted to top up virtual accounts on UAE based Pyypl Payment Aggregator. Then funds were used from Pyypl to buy Crypto-currency,” ED said.
The entire network was being run by suspicious chartered accountants, it added.
Financial Intelligence Unit – India (FIU-IND) is the central, national agency responsible for receiving, processing, analysing and disseminating information relating to suspect financial transactions to enforcement agencies and foreign FIUs.
Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) is an initiative of the Home Ministry to deal with cyber crime in the country.
(With inputs from Neeraj Chauhan in Delhi)
