Fraudulent withdrawals worth crores of rupees from the accounts of EPF account holders who had gone home during COVID pandemic period
Jammu: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) here on Monday conducted searches in the premises of Employees Provident Fund Office and seized incriminating documents pertaining to fraudulent withdrawal of money from the accounts of many PF account holders.
Pointing out that total amount fraudulently withdrawal was worth several crores of rupees, sources said that searches followed reliable information received by CBI officials. With CBI deploying even its cyber experts to examine computers and other digital devices at the EPFO office here, the searches were in progress.
Giving details, sources said that the alleged fraud has been committed during the COVID pandemic period when a large number of labourers had gone back to their native places last year. Some of the EPFO officials, taking advantage of the large scale migration of labourers during the pandemic period, withdrew the money deposited in the account of migrant EPF account holders and transferred it into the bank accounts of accounts of some fake people.
Only last week, the Centre’s premier investigation agency had conducted searches in the premises of Sainik School Nagrota on the outskirts of Jammu city. The searches followed complaints of alleged irregularities into various purchases and undue favour to some people in the allotment of contracts.
Some incriminating documents have been recovered by CBI during searches, which are in progress, sources said.