ED raids three places in Bengal in online forgery scam case

Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate (ED), on Wednesday, was conducting a marathon raid and search operation at three different locations in West Bengal in connection with an online forgery scam case.

The raid operation began on Tuesday night.

Sources said that one of the three places was the residence of Hasan Ali at Lashkardighi in the East Burdwan district. Although Ali was known in the locality as a tailor by profession, the investigating officials have clues about his involvement in online forgery.

According to information available so far, the investigating officials have tracked a fictitious transaction in the bank account of Ali, when he went to Qatar recently reportedly on some tailoring assignment.

A huge amount of money was deposited into his account and then withdrawn after a short interval. The investigating officials have also tracked fictitious transactions in the bank account in the name of Ali’s son.

The investigating officials are now trying to track the actual reason for his trip to Qatar and suspect his connection with an online forgery racket where the bank accounts held by him and his son were used for fund diversion.

At the same time, another team of ED officials was conducting search operations at the residence of Jalil Molla cyber cafe owner at Bhangar in South 24 Parganas district.

Sources said the raids at Molla’s residence were being conducted on the basis of information that a major forgery racket was being operated from the cyber cafe owned by him. Besides questioning Molla in this connection the investigating officials have also seized hard discs and other gadgets from his cyber cafe.

The third place where the central agency officials were conducting a raid was at another cyber cafe located at Kaikhali on the northern outskirts of Kolkata. It is learnt that the owner of this cyber cafe was in contact with Jalil Molla.