NEW DELHI: In a first of its kind money laundering case, a complaint lodged by an Irish woman in Dungarvan, a coastal town in Ireland, was taken up for investigation by Enforcement Directorate in India, triggering a series of searches across Bihar and West Bengal.
It resulted in busting of a syndicate of cyber criminals — mostly school dropout desi boys speaking accented British English — swindling people in UK and Ireland by remotely taking control of their phones and computers and transferring several crores of rupees from their bank accounts into their own.
Searches in Patna and later in Kharagpur and Kolkata unearthed a 70-seater call centre operated by the crooks that had conned at least 40 victims.
The Irish woman complained of receiving a call from one ‘Stephanie’ from Eircom Telecom, a broadband service provider of her country. Accused ‘Stephanie’, who turned out to be Nitesh Kumar, was operating from a guest house in Patna which was searched on Dec 18 last year. He was apprehended before he could jump out of the window of his room.
Searches at three locations in Kolkata and one in Kharagpur at the premises of Sagar Yadav, the kingpin of syndicate, led to seizure of five laptops, 16 mobile handsets, 56 credit/debit cards and 69 bank accounts along with cash of around Rs 2 crore. Officials later seized Rs 2.8 crore in bank accounts of the accused.
The probe further revealed that two illegal call centres were being operated by Sagar Yadav in Kharagpur. During the searches, 70 computers with IP telephones and headphones were recovered. The ED arrested three persons in the case, including Yadav and Kumar.
After taking control of the victims’ bank accounts on their phone/computer remotely, the accused transferred proceeds of crime to the bank accounts of their foreign associates based in UK/Ireland, who then withdrew these amounts and transferred the same to India through Western Union and Moneygram platforms. After receiving the proceeds of crime in the Indian bank accounts, the same used to be withdrawn in cash.
This is for the first time that an FIR lodged overseas was used as a predicate offence by the central agency to register a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and seized ‘proceeds of crime’.
“The case falls under the category of offence of ‘cross-border implication’ under PMLA as it was committed in a foreign country and later the proceeds in the instant case were transferred to India,” a senior official aware of the investigation revealed. The ED registered an ECIR, equivalent to a police FIR, in Oct 2023 and began investigating the case after it was referred to India by Irish authorities through the CBI.
Kumar’s mobile phones were seized and further investigation revealed at least 44 nationals from the UK and Ireland had fallen victim to the syndicate masterminded by him along with a dozen of other associates operating from Kharagpur and Kolkata. “Investigation also revealed involvement of foreign associates of the accused in arranging foreign software, telecom services and B2C data,” the source added.
