ED probes 4,200 Indians linked to illegal US entry, 8,500 suspicious transactions found

With the United States intensifying its efforts to deport illegal immigrants, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has been investigating at least 4,200 Indians suspected of having illegally immigrated to the US over the past three years. On Wednesday, 104 Indians were deported to India on a C-17 military aircraft, which landed in Amritsar.The deportees were among many who had travelled through various countries to reach the US, only to fall victim to Donald Trump’s extensive crackdown on illegal immigration.

While there are no authoritative figures on the number of undocumented Indian immigrants in the US, the ED, as part of its ongoing investigation, is scrutinising agencies based in Gujarat and Punjab for allegedly facilitating immigration to the US. The ED has identified more than 4,000 suspicious transactions linked to these agencies.

These agencies reportedly exploited the education route, whereby Indians were admitted to Canadian colleges to obtain Canadian visas. However, the students never enrolled in these colleges; instead, they were transported to the US via land routes, according to an Indian Express report.The ED confirmed that payments to the colleges were made through EbixCash, a financial services company offering foreign remittance services. It was revealed that 8,500 transactions were made on behalf of students from Gujarat to various colleges in Canada between September 2021 and October 2024. Of these, 4,300 transactions were found to be duplicates, suggesting each transaction was recorded twice under the same individual’s name.

“Thus, a total of 4,200 such transactions are under investigation. It is suspected that these payments were made with the intention of sending the individual associated with each transaction to the US via Canada,” an ED official said, as quoted by the outlet.

The investigation also uncovered how the agencies constructed a complex web of financial transactions to carry out their activities without drawing attention. They used multilayered transactions to avoid detection and employed overdraft accounts to ensure that the large volume of transactions did not trigger any suspicious activity reports that could be traced by enforcement agencies.

As the ED pursues its investigation into illegal immigration, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar explained that the Indian government is also addressing concerns about illegal immigration with the US. Referring to such actions as “not new,” Jaishankar told the Rajya Sabha that official data since 2009 shows that a total of 15,756 Indian nationals living illegally in the US have been deported over the years.