ED sets up first office in Sikkim

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has established its fourth sub-zonal office in the northeastern region of the country with the operationalisation of a new facility in Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim.

The federal agency said in a statement that its new office will be functional from a building on Bahai School Road from Friday.

''This sub-zonal office will be functioning under the jurisdiction of the Kolkata zonal office-II and it will be headed by a Deputy Director rank officer. It will have jurisdiction over the entire state of Sikkim,'' the ED said.

Three similar sub-zonal offices were recently established by the ED in Shillong (Meghalaya) and Imphal (Manipur) and Agartala (Tripura).

The agency has been operating in the north eastern states all these years through its zonal office located in Guwahati, Assam.

''The process of establishing sub-zonal offices in all the remaining capitals of the states in the north east in this financial year is underway,'' it said.

The agency said the Gangtok office ''is expected to significantly improve attachment and confiscation of proceeds of crime under the PMLA and also assist/support the police and other state and central law enforcement agencies in Tripura to prevent transfer of funds across borders otherwise than through banking channel.'' The ED functions under the Union Finance Ministry and apart from enforcing the criminal provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), it also implements the civil sections of the Foreign Exchange Management Act and the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act that was brought in 2018.

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