Kolkata, Jan 2 (IANS): The officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are conducting raids at multiple locations in West Bengal in connection with an alleged online forgery scam since Thursday morning, sources said.

Sources aware of the development said that the raids and search operations are being conducted based on a complaint registered in Chennai about an online forgery case involving over Rs 1,000 crore.

Investigations revealed that the rackets extended their activities in some of the eastern Indian states mainly in West Bengal which prompted ED to conduct such raids and search operations.

Sources said that currently such operations are being conducted at eight locations in the state including five in and around the state capital, Kolkata. Each team of ED officials is being escorted by the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) personnel.

The raid and search operations started at a garage at Salt Lake on the northern outskirts of Kolkata where the forgery operations were reportedly conducted. The ED officials detained one person from there and started conducting raids and search operations at the residential flat of a businessman named Sadanand Jha at a posh housing complex at Raghunathpur, also in the northern outskirts of Kolkata.

The raids and search operations are still on.

Sources said that recently the Kolkata Police arrested a person Tanmay Paul on charges of forgery involving an amount of Rs 60 lakh. However, the investigation revealed that Paul was a part of a similar racket operating nationwide and he had defrauded around 300 people involving an amount of over Rs 60 crore.

Later ED also started investigating the case leading to Thursday's raids.

Recently several cases of cyber forgery have been reported in West Bengal and in most cases the fraudsters posing as central investigating agency officials or officers of cybercrime divisions of the different state police forces were extorting people of lakhs of rupees and threatening arrests.