• ED traces 50cr in a/cs linked to arrested Pak man
    Times of India | 14 May 2025
  • 123 Kolkata: Enforcement Directorate (ED) has tracked Rs 50 crore in accounts linked to Azad Hussain, the Pakistani national arrested by the central investigating agency from Birati on April 15 in connection with a fake passport racket. More alarmingly, ED officials discovered details of how Azad sent Bangladeshi nationals to countries like Dubai, Malaysia, and Cambodia by forging documents.Sleuths, who stumbled upon a larger conspiracy across multiple countries, suspect that Azad was running the network from Bengal upon instructions from "persons in Pakistan".They already found Azad's WhatsApp chats and other digital evidence revealing incriminating information exchanges with several Pakistani nationals. At a special PMLA court, ED's lawyer Bhaskar Prasad Banerjee said how money was transferred to different accounts of Azad and his aides. According to sources, Rs 50 crore has been traced so far. The ill-gotten money, sourced from persons whose documents were forged, was sent to different bank accounts of multiple persons to erase the trail.Azad also used a network of illegal money changers to transfer money between Bangladesh and India. Immediately after obtaining Indian identity documents in 2019, Azad began expanding his network across India. He contacted several agents in India and helped illegal immigrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh obtain visas in India and other countries. For Pakistani nationals trying to enter India, he would first get them a Bangladeshi passport and then an Indian tourist visa. Once in India, he arranged fake documents for them and also fake passports for other countries.He also arranged forged documents for Bangladeshi nationals to go to Dubai, Malaysia and Cambodia. He received cash from them via different channels and sent forged papers to his counterparts in the respective countries for visas. Azad, who opened a company called Mallik Trading Corporation, was allegedly working under instructions from individuals in Pakistan.
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