Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested a Bangladeshi citizen who was not only residing in Kolkata after possessing fake Indian identity documents, including a passport, but also was operating a hawala racket from his residence.
The arrested person has been identified as Azad Mullick, the owner of Mullick Trading Corporation. He was arrested late Tuesday night at his residence near Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, which is located on the northern outskirts of Kolkata.
Sources said the investigating officials of the Central agency have tracked that the arrested had transferred Rs 2.62 crore last year from India to Bangladesh using the Hawala route.
He will be presented at a special court of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata on Wednesday. He was booked under Sections 3 and 4 of the PMLA.
Earlier on Tuesday night, the ED officials also arrested Alok Nath, a kingpin of a racket engaged in arranging fake Indian documents, including Indian passports to illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators. He was arrested near the international border with Bangladesh at Gede in Nadia district.
The ED officials conducted raid and search operations at multiple locations in Kolkata, North 24 Parganas, and Nadia districts in connection with the Central agency’s investigation into the money laundering in the fake passport case.
Last month, Kolkata Police filed a charge sheet in the case of the forged passport scam at a lower court in Kolkata, where it was mentioned that of the 130 individuals mentioned in the document, 120 are Bangladeshi residents, and the remaining are Indian nationals.
The main charges against the Bangladeshi nationals are that they paid huge money to secure fake Indian passports.
The charges against the accused Indian nationals are that they played the role of facilitators for arranging fake identity documents, including Indian passports, for these illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators.
Earlier, Kolkata Police arrested Abdul Hai, a retired Assistant Sub-Inspector of the city police. The details of Hai’s involvement in the matter were also mentioned in the charge sheet.
It contained details of Hai’s financial gain through these 52 police verification clearances, where he was the on-ground inquiry or verification officer.
(IANS)
