FIR Registered Against ED’s Assistant Director Sandeep Singh Under PMLA

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday registered a case against ED’s Assistant Director, Sandeep Singh under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, after carrying out a search operation at his house. The ED officials carried out a search operation at his house under the 2002 Act.

According to the reports, a joint search operation was also conducted at his office by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The ED in its statement said that the action was in consequence of an FIR and the arrest of Sandeep Singh by the CBI. 

Notably, Sandeep Singh was arrested by the Mumbai CBI in New Delhi on August 7 for allegedly extorting Rs 20 lakhs from an individual, who was being investigated by the ED. The alleged bribe, recovered from the ED official, was allegedly to favour a person in an ED case. Taking immediate cognizance of this incident and given its policy of zero tolerance towards corruption, ED took criminal action against Singh under the PMLA.

The agency registered an Enforcement Case Information Report against him, following which the search operation is being conducted at his residence under the provisions of PMLA, seeking to gather evidence of his criminal activities.

A joint search operation was also conducted at his office by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation to collect evidences related to the offence.

In addition to the PMLA case, action has also been initiated to suspend him immediately and to repatriate him to his parent department from the ED.

During the investigation, it was found that Singh, acting as the "Search Warrant Authorized Officer" had searched the residential premises in Mumbai of an individual named Vipul, who is under ED's investigation.

Vipul Thakkar is the owner of M/s V S Gold, an entity which was suspected to be involved in money laundering.

The search was uneventful and conducted on August 4 as per the due procedure. But Singh was not the investigating officer of this particular ECIR and was requested to search the target premises. However, he represented himself as an investigating officer and allegedly accepted the bribe in return for favouring the accused, even though he was not connected with the case in any way.