CBI Probes Pension Fraud Worth Crores, Misuse Of Migrants' Data

According to the sources, the accused knew the system and its loopholes well and used the data of migrant workers to defraud the organization during the pandemic.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a corruption and cheating case against three officials of Employees' Provident Fund Organisation or EPFO for allegedly siphoning off around 2.71 crore between March 2020-June 2021 when the pension fund organization had relaxed the norms for withdrawals amid job losses due to lockdown. The case was registered based on a complaint from the Vigilance Department of Employees' Provident Fund Organization. The "mastermind" of this scam was a senior Social Security Assistant in the Kandivali Regional office, sources in the CBI told NDTV. The official, Chandan Kumar Sinha, has been charged along with Uttam Tagaray and Vijay Jarpe, both Assistant Provident Fund Commissioner in Coimbatore and Chennai regional offices. The Vigilance Department of the EPFO learned about the scam on May 18 following a tip-off by an anonymous person, NDTV has learned. Soon after, the department started an internal audit which revealed that crores have been siphoned off from the Pension Fund corpus through manipulation of the system by the insiders. Based on the revelations, the EPFO filed the complaint with CBI on August 24. According to the sources, the accused knew the system and its loopholes well and used the data of migrant workers to defraud the organization during the pandemic.