Hyderabad, Oct 17 : The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) conducted searches at the premises of five Full Fledged Money Changers (FFMCs) in Hyderabad, an agency statement said on Friday.

The ED, Hyderabad Zonal Office, said that the searches were conducted under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999, at the premises of Prism Forex Private Ltd, Garuda Forex Services Private Ltd, Sree Vimal Nath Forex Private Ltd, Victory Forex & Travel Services Private Ltd, and Digital Forex Private Ltd on Thursday.

Search operations revealed that these FFMCs were operating illegally without any valid licence from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Earlier, the RBI Hyderabad had conducted an inspection at such FFMCs and found several irregularities such as KYC documents without corresponding travel tickets, false/fictitious traveller names, fake/forged flight tickets, manipulation in date of flights and flight numbers, mismatch in signatures of customers, etc, the ED said in a statement. Also, multiple copies of the same travel ticket were recovered with key details forged therein. Sale was shown mostly against travel to common destinations like Indonesia, the Maldives, Thailand, and Sri Lanka, where a visa is not required.

RBI inspection led to the surrender of RBI licences by the FFMCs in June-July this year. ED investigation revealed that even after the surrender of RBI licence, some FFMCs, namely Prism Forex, Victory Forex & Travel Services, and Digital Forex Private Limited, were continuing to operate and engage in illegal money changing business, displaying fake/forged RBI licence in their premises.

Searches under FEMA resulted in the recovery of incriminating documents, mobile phones, and laptops containing records of illegal foreign currency dealings. Searches also led to the seizure of unaccounted Indian currency to the tune of Rs 11.99 lakh and foreign currency of various countries in various denominations equivalent to approximately Rs 26.77 lakh.

Further investigation is in progress, said the ED.

/IANS