TRIPURA: ED sets up office in Agartala

NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) established its third sub-zonal office in the northeast with the operationalisation of a new facility in Tripura's Agartala.

The federal agency said in a statement that its new office will be functional from a building in Natunnagar on Airport Road in Agartala beginning Wednesday.

"This sub zonal office is under the jurisduiction of Guwahati zonal office-II and it will be headed by a Deputy Director rank officer."

"It will have jurisdiction over the entire state of Tripura," the ED said.

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

The agency has been operating in northeastern states till now through its zonal offices 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 Agartala 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 (FEMA) and the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act that was brought in 2018.