ED searches 13 sites in Rs 14.55 crore Tripura fake tender case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has searched 13 premises in Tripura, West Bengal and Maharashtra in a money laundering probe into an alleged Rs 14.55 crore fake government tender racket, with the residence of suspended Tripura-cadre IAS officer Abhishek Chandra among the places searched.

The searches were carried out on November 4 by the ED's Agartala sub-zonal office under Section 17 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the agency said in a statement on November 5, as reported by Tripurainfo and The Times of India. No arrest had been announced as of Saturday, Tripurainfo reported.

The complaint

The case began with an FIR at Capital Complex police station in West Tripura on a complaint by M/s SK Sales Corporation of Nagpur against Chandra and others. The company said it was induced to deposit about Rs 14.55 crore as earnest money between September 2024 and February 2025 for contracts linked to the mid-day meal scheme and the power sector in Tripura.

According to the ED, those tenders were never issued by the state government.

What the ED alleges

Investigators allege that Chandra presented himself as an officer overseeing tender processes and introduced the company to Utpal Kumar Chowdhury, who was projected as the person handling payments. Demand drafts were made out to a "Directorate of Higher Education". The ED says this was in fact a private proprietorship of Chowdhury using a name close to that of a real government department, and that forged tender papers and work orders were used to make the deals look genuine.

Part of the money was allegedly returned from time to time to keep the company's trust. The rest, the agency says, was moved quickly through shell companies, some registered in the names of domestic workers and associates, and used to buy flats and a house in Mumbai's Shivaji Park area in the names of Chandra's family members, besides foreign travel and luxury purchases. Some funds were allegedly routed through a Kolkata-based hawala operator.

Documents on suspected hawala dealings, property records and electronic devices were seized. The ED said Chowdhury and others are already being probed in a separate case built on five FIRs in Tripura and West Bengal, where the same fake entity was allegedly used to cheat victims of over Rs 44 crore. Provisional attachment orders in that case were issued on January 22 and July 31 this year.

Court protection

Tripurainfo reported that a Tripura High Court division bench on September 16 suspended, until further orders, a specific state-level proceeding challenged by Chandra in a writ petition. The interim order is not a finding on the allegations.

The allegations have not been tested in court, and no public response from Chandra or the other people named has been reported.