The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) will hire experts and firms dealing with financial data analysis and forensic audit to augment its probe in sophisticated drug crimes that involve use of the dark web, cryptocurrencies and deals concealed through layered transactions.
The NCB has issued a notice for empanelment of consultancy agencies which would be required to help it in "unearthing the chain of transactions for drug money and provide effective guidance in financial investigation matters."
The empanelled agencies will assist the NCB in analysing financial statements and data available in various databases of the bureau and sister agencies, officials said.
Such companies will also help NCB investigators "prepare statements of income and expenditure of the interested party and related parties to unearth the ill-gotten money," they said.
The experts will also assist NCB sleuths in conducting forensic audits, scrutiny of reports and documents and analysing bank statements, and property transactions to unearth the illegal income of an accused, associates and family members.
The experts will also provide services analysis of financial data and prepare company and sector-specific reports.
Initially, the financial experts will be attached with the agency’s zonal offices located in Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Bengaluru and Guwahati.
The move comes in the backdrop of NCB unearthing cases involving the use of the dark web, cryptocurrencies and multiple payments gateways and channels for narcotic deals. has increased.
With a view to check drug crimes, the NCB is conducting cyber patrolling for which domain experts were required to be roped in for professional investigation of sophisticated cases.
Last month, the NCB arrested 22 persons, including software engineers, a financial analyst, an MBA graduate and one of their own personnel as it busted a pan-India drug trafficking network that uses the 'dark net' and cryptocurrency to courier narcotics at home of the consumers of the contraband.