An investigation is underway after the Pune EPFO office was cheated out of ₹18 crore
Wanowrie police have charged 89 ABRY beneficiaries with defrauding EPFO of ₹18.04 crore by submitting fraudulent documents. The investigation is underway, and IPC sections have been invoked.
The Wanowrie police have booked 89 beneficiaries of Aatmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana (ABRY) for defrauding the Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO), Pune regional office, of over ₹18.04 crore.
The incident happened between December 31, 2020 and May 3, 2024. Manoj Kumar Asrani, the PF enforcement officer, filed the FIR on Friday.
Asrani stated, “An internal investigation by the EPFO revealed that bogus documents were submitted to claim benefits under the scheme. We filed a FIR, and further investigation is underway.”
The ABRY was launched to incentivize employers to create new jobs while also providing social security benefits and restoring lost employment during the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the FIR, 89 proprietors applied online for PF numbers under the ABRY scheme and submitted forged documents as proof of address and name.
An internal investigation conducted by the EPF vigilance cell revealed that the addresses did not match the details submitted to the PF office online, and no such proprietary office could be found when the vigilance squads visited the addresses to verify their credentials.
The complaint stated that 42 out of 89 beneficiaries took ₹9, 56, 76,123 in the name of bogus workers and used ₹2, 40, 85,910 for personal gains, while 47 beneficiaries took ₹8,89,35,246 in the name of bogus workers and kept ₹2, 21, 08,577 for their own benefit and cheated the government.
The police have charged the accused under Sections 420, 467, 468, and 471 of the Indian Penal Code.
Sanjay Patange, incharge of the Wanowrie police station, stated, “We have received a complaint about fraudulent siphoning of PF money through the submission of bogus documents. We’ve started our investigation based on the information provided by the EPFO in the complaint.”
