Pak national gets notice for money laundering, forging documents

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The notice was sent on the basis of a prosecution complaint filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against the Pakistani National, Ajad Mallik, alias Ahammed Hossain Azad and Azad Hossain.

The ED had initiated the investigation on the basis of an FIR registered by the West Bengal Police under Section 14 and 14-A of the Foreigners Act-1946 against Mallik and others.

During a search conducted on April 15, Ajad Mallik, son of Mona Mallik, initially believed to be a Bangladeshi national, was found residing in India without valid documents and found involved in making Indian passport and other documents through fraudulent means for illegal immigrants in lieu of money.

Subsequently, he was arrested under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and remained in ED custody for 14 days in the instant case. Presently, he is in judicial custody.

The ED investigations further revealed that Mallik was a Pakistani national illegally living in India. A Pakistani driving licence, dating back to 1994, was recovered from his mobile phone, bearing the name Azad Hossain and featuring the photograph of Ajad Mallik (alias Ahammed Hossain Azad). It listed his father’s name as Mumtaz-Ul-Haque and mentioned a permanent address in Pakistan.

The document recorded his date of birth as August 14, 1971, and was issued by the licencing authority in Hyderabad, Pakistan. In order to conceal his true identity, Azad Hussain adopted the alias "Ajad Mallik" and procured multiple Indian identity documents — including Aadhaar card, PAN card, driving license, voter ID, and passport — by submitting forged and fabricated documents.

The probe further revealed that Mallik operated a hawala network to facilitate illegal cross-border remittances between India and Bangladesh, collecting payments in cash and UPI, before transferring equivalent amounts to Bangladesh using platforms like Bkash.

He was also involved in illegal money transfers and document forgery and facilitated the preparation of visas and passports for Bangladeshi nationals seeking to travel to foreign countries such as Dubai, Cambodia and Malaysia.

He collected payments in Bangladeshi Taka, US dollar or Indian rupee and deposited these amounts into his own bank account or transferred them to the accounts of associates engaged in fraudulent visa/passport processing.

Mallik also played a significant role in the fraudulent activities carried out at certain forex changers (FFMC) based in Kolkata, in which huge cash deposits were falsely represented as proceeds from legitimate foreign currency sales to customers, but were proceeds of crime (POC) linked to unlawful practices, including the creation of fake Indian identities for Bangladeshi individuals to obtain passports.