The official email account of CBI Joint Director Rajiv Singh, who was overseeing a probe into the Rs 13,000 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam involving billionaire diamond merchant Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi, has been hacked from Shimla.
Sources said that Singh’s account was accessed from Shimla, after which Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) alerted the agency. His account was reportedly used to send out bulk emails. “Agencies are now probing the possibility of Singh’s account having been hacked. His desktop computer has been seized. The unit is trying to ascertain whether any sensitive information was leaked,” said the sources. The CBI Joint Director had last month been repatriated to his home cadre of Tripura. However, Singh’s transfer is not connected to the Nirav Modi case.
Suspicious activity on his email account was first noticed on May 16, after which CERT of the Ministry of Information Technology blocked his account. Investigative agencies are asking why Singh did not immediately report the suspicious activity.
“(The) matter was immediately brought to the notice of systems division of the CBI. The systems division contacted National Informatics Centre which operates the official e-mails of the CBI. NIC informed that in view of a single time suspicious activity on this e-mail on the same day the ID has been immediately and automatically blocked,” the agency said in a statement refuting reports the hacking compromised probe in any case under Rajiv Singh.
And under flak from all corners as the fugitive moved from one country to another, the CBI has shifted blame to the member countries, barring the UK, of Interpol for not informing it about the jewellers movement. The agency said that it had written to Interpol offices in UK, US, France, UAE, Belgium and Singapore five times since February 15 and informed about revocation of his passport but these Interpol member countries didn’t inform them about Modi’s movements.
The agency further stated that the data on diffusion notice, issued on February 15, and revocation of Nirav Modi’s passport by India, is already available in central database of Interpol internationally. “We had issued diffusion notice against Modi on Feb 15 and followed it up with six countries where we thought he will be visiting or residing; we received a reply from UK Interpol saying he left UK on March 31 with details of movements to and fro UK,”said a CBI official justifying their total dependence on Interpol.
Interpol in a letter a June 5 letter to CBI, said Modi travelled between United States, United Kingdom and Hong Kong on his Indian passport between March 15 and March 31. According to Interpol, he travelled four times on that passport on March 15, March 28, March 30 and March 31.
It was on February 24, the Ministry of External Affairs revoked the passports of Modi and his maternal uncle Mehul Choksi, promoter of Gitanjali Group, after they failed to respond to a February 16 notice issued by the ministry.
The CBI approached Interpol on June 11 for issuing a Red Corner Notice (RCN) against Nirav Modi. This was because the charge sheet in the case had not been filed until recently.