ED conducts fresh searches in Punjab, Haryana in ‘donkey route’ case

The Enforcement Directorate on Friday conducted fresh searches in Punjab and Haryana as part of a money-laundering investigation into a 'donkey route' case related to illegal Indian immigrants who were deported by the US this year, official sources said.

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Raids are being undertaken at seven locations at Mansa in Punjab and Kurukshetra and Karnal in Haryana under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, they said.

The latest raids are based on “credible” inputs gathered during the first round of searches conducted on July 9 at 11 locations in these two states, sources said.

Post the July 9 searches, the federal probe agency on Thursday in a statement said it had recovered 30 original passports and got hold of the names of various agents and immigration agencies running the “donkey route” business of sending Indians abroad illegally on a "large scale".

Inputs gathered show that human traffickers were used to arrange illegal route resources outside India in connivance with human trafficking conduits, sources said.

The ED had said it was found that those willing to go to the US were "duped" by travel agents and middlemen on false promises of sending them through legal channels.

However, they were sent to the US through the “donkey route”, crossing the borders of various countries and illegally negotiating dangerous routes, with the help of ‘donkers’ and the mafia, it had said.