Maha passport racket: CBI seizes Rs 1.59 crore cash in fresh raids

Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) carried out fresh raids at the home and office of a passport agent and recovered cash Rs 1.59 crore, an official said here on Tuesday.

The raids, part of the investigations into the mega-scam detected last week, also led to the recovery of five diaries and digital gadgets with incriminating material in them, which are being analysed.

Last weekend, the CBI swooped on 33 locations in Maharashtra and booked 32 people in an alleged racket of issuing dubious passports in return for huge bribes.

Following complaints, the CBI lodged 12 cases in Mumbai and Nashik against 14 passport department officers at the Passport Seva Kendra (PSKs) in Malad and Lower Parel, besides Nashik, and raided various locations on Tuesday.

Among those booked include 14 Passport Assistants and senior passport assistants at the PSKs, and the rest 18 are outside facilitators/agents/touts, all of them jointly indulging in corruption activities.

The accused were in regular contact with each other and conspired with them to allegedly issue dubious passports with inadequate/incomplete documentation or manipulation of the personal details of the passport applicants.

The CBI team carried out the raids along with the Vigilance Officers of the Passport Seva Programme Division of the MEA and the RPO, Mumbai officers.

During the swoops, the joint surprise check teams analysed the offices, desks, mobiles and other belongings of the suspected officers which revealed a lot of incriminating stuff.

The analysis of the documents, social media chats and UPI identity activities threw up various suspicious transactions by some of the officers, indicating demands and acceptance of bribes through the facilitators/agents/touts for issuing passports based on insufficient, fake or forged documentation.

The CBI found that the PSK officers in connivance with the outside facilitators were allegedly receiving huge sums of money, running into lakhs of rupees, directly in their own bank accounts or in the bank accounts of their close families or relatives from the agents.

The CBI has already recovered several damning documents, digital evidence, passport papers and other material pertaining to the frauds, and further investigations are underway, said the official.