New Delhi

The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday undertook searches at 15 locations in six states as part of a money laundering probe into a scam under which fraudulent joining letters for government jobs were sent, officials said.

An organised gang is under the scanner of the agency. The Patna office of the ED is conducting searches in Bihar, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, the officials said.

They said the scam was initially detected in the name of Railways but an in-depth investigation found that it covers over 40 other government organisations and departments including Forests, RRB (railway recruitment board), India Post, Income Tax Department, some high courts, PWD, Bihar government, Delhi Development Authority, Rajasthan secretariat and others.

The gang used fake email accounts impersonating official government domains to send fraudulent joining letters, the ED found.

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To gain trust of the aspirants, the gang paid initial salaries for 2-3 months to some victims who were fraudulently placed in organisations like RPF (Railway Protection Force), Railway TTE (Travelling Ticket Examiner) and technician etc.

Locations in Muzaffarpur and Motihari in Bihar, Kolkata in West Bengal, Ernakulam, Pandalam, Adoor, and Kodur in Kerala, Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Rajkot (Gujarat), Gorakhpur, Prayagraj and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh are being searched, the officials said.