The ED has 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.
Officials said multiple teams of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) swooped early morning at over 50 branches of at least ten banks, both in the private and public sector, along with banking auditors to “scrutinise” transaction records and account statements, armed with vital inputs gathered from financial snoop agencies.
They said ED teams have 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 have been deposited or huge cash has been deposited in bank accounts in one go or in a staggered fashion giving rise to suspicion of suspect deposits.