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As part of the payment process, these labs have already received a total amount of Rs 3.4 from Uttarakhand
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After the investigation of the fake COVID-19 test during the Kumbh Mela in Haridwar (Uttarakhand), the law and economic intelligence agency, Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday conducted several raids in connection with a money-laundering probe in five labs in five cites.
ED officials conducted several searches at the offices of Novus Path Labs, DNA Labs, Max Corporate Services, Dr Lal Chandani Labs Pvt Ltd, and Nalwa Laboratories Pvt Ltd. Apart from that, searches were also conducted at the residential premises of their directors in Haridwar, Dehradun, Noida, Delhi, and Hisar.
The Enforcement Directorate took to its official Twitter handle and wrote, "ED has conducted searches at the office and residential premises of Novus Path Labs, DNA Labs, Max Corporate Services, Dr. Lal Chandani Labs; and Nalwa Labs at Dehradun, Haridwar, Delhi, Noida and Hisar in connection with a fake COVID testing scam during Kumbh Mela at Haridwar."
The Enforcement Directorate has also started a money-laundering investigation after Uttarakhand Police registered a First Information Report (FIR).
As per the agency, during the investigation, they found that the labs were given the contract by the government of Uttarakhand for performing Rapid Antigen Test/RT-PCR tests to detect the COVID-19 infection, during the Kumbh Mela. However, these laboratories assigned by the Uttarakhand Government hardly performed any RT-PCR COVID-19 tests, but also curated fake entries for testing and raised fake bills to make illegal financial gains.
As part of the payment process, these labs have already received a total amount of Rs 3.4 from Uttarakhand, it added.
These labs accused in the scam utilized a fake or same mobile numbers, same SRF and one house address for multiple people just to show the inflated number of COVID-19 without even doing the RT-PCR test.
Testing was professed to be done in the name of those people who never went to the Kumbh Mela, revealed the Enforcement Directorate investigation.
It began with the fake RT-PCR accusations coming into the limelight when a Faridkot resident recieved a message to collect his COVID-19 report, although he never went to any laboratory for testing. So he registered a complaint with the UK govt officials which led to an investigation that revealed approximately 1,00,000 false RT-PCR tests were performed during the Kumbh Mela.