New Delhi, June 12 (Agency) The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday arrested an accused in an ongoing investigation of a case related to alleged fraudulent withdrawal of Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) claims through identity theft, agency officials said. A case was registered on February 8 last year against seven establishments and other unknown individuals on a complaint from EPFO related to alleged fraudulent activities involving identity theft, aimed at illegally withdrawing funds from the PF accounts of genuine beneficiaries, CBI said in a statement. It was alleged that the accused had adopted the modus operandi to target individuals whose Aadhaar cards were not linked to their PF accounts.
It was further alleged that the fraudsters obtained an Aadhaar card with identical name, date of birth, and gender by submitting forged documents to update an existing Aadhaar card. It was also alleged that the fraudsters registered the altered Aadhaar card with fictitious establishments and linked it to the respective establishments, it said. The fraudsters fraudulently withdrew PF funds by filing multiple online claims on behalf of genuine PF members, it added. Searches were conducted at eight premises belonging to the accused and others located in Bihar, Jharkhand, and Delhi which led to recovery of various incriminating documents, mobile phones, ATM cards, cheque books and passbooks, the statement said. The accused was produced before the court and remanded to four days of police custody.