Enforcement Directorate establishes new office in Mangaluru
Mangaluru, Sep 3: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has established a new sub-zonal office at Kankanady in Mangaluru district that began functioning from Friday.
The office is located at E-7, Central Excise Staff Quarters, Kankanady in Mangaluru and it will function under its existing zonal office in the state that is based in the capital city of Bengaluru, the agency said in a statement.
The new office will be headed by a deputy director rank officer and have jurisdiction over 15 districts of the state -- Dakshina Kannada, Bagalkot, Belgaum, Bellary, Bidar, Bijapur, Gadag, Haveri, Davangere, Dharwad, Gulbarga, Uttara Kannada, Koppal, Udupi and Raichur, it said.
Two similar sub-zonal offices were recently established by the ED in Shillong (Meghalaya) and Imphal (Manipur).
The ED functions under the Union finance ministry and apart from enforcing the criminal anti-money laundering law PMLA, it also implements the civil sections of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and Fugitive Economic Offenders Act that was brought in 2018.
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ED searches: Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah accuses Centre of targeting Cong leaders
Chamarajanagara (Karnataka) (PTI): Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday accused the central government and its agencies of consistently targeting Congress members by using searches on their properties, and questioned why similar action is not taken against BJP leaders.
He was reacting to searches conducted by the Enforcement Directorate on Monday on several individuals, among them the sons of Karnataka Congress MLA N A Haris and the grandson of former Union Cabinet minister K Rahman Khan, in connection with a cryptocurrency-linked money laundering case.
"The central government always targets Congress leaders. Will they raid the houses of BJP leaders?" Siddaramaiah said in response to a question. More than a dozen premises in the city were searched as part of the operation carried out by the ED under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The premises searched comprised those of Mohammed Haris Nalapad and Omar Farook Nalapad, the sons of the MLA; Aqeeb Khan, the grandson of veteran Congress leader K Rahman Khan; and an alleged crypto hacker, Srikrishna Ramesh, alias Sriki, officials said.
The money laundering case stems from Karnataka Police FIRs and charge sheets filed in a 2017 case involving the hacking of national and international websites, theft of bitcoins, and the sale of these stolen virtual digital assets (VDAs) through crypto platforms by the alleged hacker Sriki and his associates.
Mohammed Haris Nalapad, Omar Farook Nalapad, and Aqeeb Khan are alleged to be beneficiaries of the proceeds of crime generated through this crypto-linked activity, officials added.
