New Delhi, Feb 7 (PTI) The Enforcement Directorate is probing a "complex network" of agents and facilitators in India, Canada and the US who help Indians illegally enter the US via "bogus" admissions in Canadian colleges, officials said Friday.

More than 8,500 monetary transactions are under the scanner of the federal probe agency in a case booked under the anti-money laundering law and taking cognisance of a Gujarat Police crime branch FIR of 2023, they said.

Some international financial companies that aid remittances of funds abroad are also under the investigation scanner of the ED after it conducted 35 searches over the last one year and seized assets worth Rs 92 lakh, the officials said.

The issue has been centrestage of discourse in Parliament and outside after a US military aircraft carrying 104 deported Indians landed in Amritsar on Wednesday.

On Thursday, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar informed Parliament that deportations by the US were organised and executed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities and 15,668 illegal Indian immigrants have been deported from the US since 2009.

On December 24 last year, the ED had said in a press statement that it was investigating the alleged involvement of some Canadian colleges and a few Indian entities in a money laundering case linked to the trafficking of Indians into the US from the Canada border.

The investigation is linked to the death of a four-member Indian family, hailing from Dingucha village in Gujarat. All four died of extreme cold while trying to cross the Canada-US border illegally on January 19, 2022.

Officials said the agency's probe, till now, has found that there was a "complex network" of agents and "facilitators" spread out in India, Canada and the US. This network manages or facilitates the stay, transportation, visa arrangement and legal issues etc of illegal immigrants, who immigrated through the route of taking "bogus" admission in colleges based in Canada.

One such agent named Fenil Kantilal Patel is based in Canada, the officials said.

ED investigators found that the fees paid to Canadian colleges was paid through a financial services providing company and it was detected that around 8,500 such transactions were made by Gujarat-based students from September 7, 2021 to August 9, 2024.

The agency found that about 4,300 of these transactions were duplicate or done by one user. It is suspected that around 370 individuals have moved to the US using this "illegal" immigration modus operandi, the officials said.

The statement of some of the parents and guardians of these Canada-enrolled students have been recorded and further investigation is going on, they said.

The agency had earlier said that as part of this racket, the accused "arranged" admission in colleges and universities in Canada for people wanted to go to the US illegally.

A Canadian student visa was applied for such people and once they reached that country, instead of joining the college, they "illegally" crossed the US-Canada border, the agency said.

"In view of this, the fee received by colleges based in Canada was remitted back to the individuals' account," the agency had alleged.

Indians were "lured" into the racket and charged between Rs 55-60 lakh per person, according to the ED.

The agency also found during a probe that two "entities", one based in Mumbai and the other in Nagpur, entered into an "agreement" for admission of Indians in universities based in foreign countries on a commission basis.

The agency said about 25,000 students are being referred by one entity and more than 10,000 students by the other to various colleges based outside India every year.

"Further, it is gathered that there are around 1,700 agents/partners based in Gujarat and around 3,500 agents/partners of other entities all over India out of which around 800 are active." "It is further revealed that around 112 colleges based in Canada have entered into an agreement with one entity and more than 150 with another entity. Their involvement in the instant case is under investigation," the ED had said.

The agency suspects that out of the total 262 such colleges in Canada, a few, which are geographically located near the Canada-US border, are involved in the trafficking of Indian nationals. PTI NES MIN MIN