Agartala, Nov 5 The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday said sleuths of its Agartala Sub-Zonal Office have conducted search and seizure operations at 13 locations across Tripura, West Bengal and Maharashtra in connection with their probe into an alleged fake government tender racket involving a suspended bureaucrat.
The operations were carried out on Wednesday and were part of an ongoing money-laundering investigation linked to an FIR registered at Capital Complex Police Station in West Tripura district.
In a release, the central agency said the FIR was registered on the complaint of M/s SK Sales Corporation, Nagpur, against a suspended Tripura cadre IAS officer and his alleged co-conspirators.
The ED said the complainant alleged that it was “fraudulently induced to pay earnest money deposits (EMDs) amounting to approximately Rs 14.55 crore between September 2024 and February 2025 against purported government tenders in the mid-day meal and power sectors, which were never actually floated”.
The latest search operations covered the residential premises of the suspended IAS officer and alleged hawala operators of North Tripura’s Dharmanagar subdivision, who were projected as the official responsible for processing payments, it said.
The office premises of several companies and entities connected to the money trail were also raided, the Enforcement Directorate said in its statement.
During the searches, ED officials seized a large volume of documentary evidence relating to hawala transactions, details of several high-value properties and records indicating suspicious control over corporate entities, it said.
“Digital devices and records belonging to various accused persons, considered crucial to the ongoing investigation, were seized,” the central agency said.
The accused persons had allegedly defrauded multiple victims of more than Rs 44 crore in aggregate, it added.
(PTI News)
