ED: Errant bank officials to be charged

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is set to submit the “appraisal report” pertaining to its recent “enquiry of records” operation conducted at over 50 bank branches across the country to detect money laundering and hawala dealing instances, to the finance ministry in a day or two. Sources said the agency, in its report, is likely to press “money laundering” charges in a number of cases as they have found serious violation by the defaulters, that includes bank officials and individuals.

Sources said “The appraisal report will be submitted to the finance ministry very soon. The agency sleuths have detected serious violations by the bank officials as well as private persons. Action will be initiated against the violators”.

The agency on December 7 launched an “enquiry of records” operation at over 50 bank branches across the country to detect money laundering and hawala dealing instances through these channels as part of its action to check financial crimes post demonetisation.

The ED teams launched the operations at branches located in major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai and others based on records of transaction of these branches where the maximum amount of old notes were deposited or huge cash was deposited in various bank accounts in one go or in a staggered fashion giving rise to suspicion. The agency had recently arrested two Axis Bank employees working at a branch in Delhi.