CBI arrests ED official for extorting

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), on Wednesday evening, arrested an assistant director of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) while he was allegedly extorting ₹20 lakh from a Mumbai-based jeweller, people familiar with the development said on Thursday.
Sandeep Singh, an officer from the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), is posted at the ED headquarters in Delhi as assistant director, Investigation Unit 1. He was allegedly caught red-handed by a CBI team from the Lajpat Nagar area around 11.30pm on Wednesday.
ED has also registered a case against Singh under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and has taken action to place him under “immediate suspension” and repatriate him to his parent department, the financial crimes probe agency said in a statement. It also carried out joint raids with the CBI on Thursday in the matter at Singh’s office.
According to the CBI’s first information report (FIR), which names Singh and “unknown others”, based on the complaint of Vipul Harish Thakkar (the jeweller from Mumbai), verification done by the sleuths revealed that a “criminal conspiracy was hatched by Sandeep Singh with others to obtain undue advantage from the complainant of ₹20 lakh… for not arresting his son Nihar Thakkar in the matter being investigated by ED”.
Sharing details of the probe, ED said in its statement that it is conducting a money laundering probe against certain entities based on multiple FIRs of Delhi, Uttarakhand and Bengaluru Police.
“In this case, search action was conducted and completed on August 4. During this action, Sandeep Singh, Assistant Director, ED acting as the ‘search warrant authorized officer’ had searched the residential premises in Mumbai of an individual under investigation,” ED statement added.
Vipul Thakkar, ED added, is the owner of M/s VS Gold, an entity that was suspected to be part of money laundering.
“The search was uneventful and conducted according to the due procedure. Singh is not the investigating officer of this case. He was requisitioned for the limited purpose of searching the target premises. However, he represented himself as an investigating officer and allegedly accepted the bribe for favouring the accused though he was in no way connected with the case being investigated,” ED added.
The agency also said it took immediate cognisance of this incident and following the policy of zero tolerance towards corruption, it has “initiated criminal action against Singh under the PMLA”.
“His office was jointly searched on Thursday by CBI and ED to collect evidence related to the offence. In addition to the PMLA case, action has also been initiated to place him under immediate suspension and for his repatriation to his parent department from ED,” it added.
There have been several instances of corrupt activities by ED officers, who are dealing with sensitive money laundering and foreign exchange cases, in the last year.
In August last year, an assistant director – Pawan Khatri – and an upper division clerk, Nitesh Kohar, of ED were arrested by CBI for allegedly taking ₹5 crore bribe from a businessman – Amandeep Dhall – so the latter was protected from the arrest in the Delhi excise policy probe.
An ED officer, Ankit Tiwari, was arrested by the Tamil Nadu Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) in December last year for allegedly accepting a payment of ₹20 lakh to away an investigation against a government employee. DVAC even searched ED’s office in Madurai. ED had approached the Supreme Court alleging that DVAC was using the case to conduct a roving inquiry by conducting search and seizure in the ED office in a bid to recover material related to sensitive cases being probed against sitting ministers in the state.
In another case, Rajasthan Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in November 2023 arrested Naval Kishore Meena, an Enforcement Officer (EO) in ED, for allegedly accepting ₹15 lakh bribe for not attaching an individual’s property in a chit fund case.