Economic offenders to be identified by unique numbers linked with PAN and Aadhar: Report

Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya and Mehul Choksi are faces any common Indian is able to attach to scams and economic offences in India, but they are just the tip of the icebergs. More loan frauds and corruption cases followed their departure from the country, and now India has a database of a whopping 2.5 lakh economic offenders.

In order to make sure that financial institutions and businesses remain alert, and these offenders don't flee, they'll now be identified by unique codes assigned by the Indian government.

Less procedure more action

• According to a report by The Times of India, This number will be system generated and will also be linked to their PAN and Aadhar cards to keep a track of their financial activities.

• The alpha-numeric code will be issued once the police or central investigative agency sends the data about an offender to the National Economic Offence Records.

• With this mechanism, multi-agency probes will be launched against individuals or companies swiftly, and authorities won't have to wait for chargesheets to be filed before starting a probe.

Targeting economic offenders on all levels

• It has also been reported that big names such as Vijay Mallya along with Delhi's former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and former finance minister P Chidambaram may also be tagged with this code.

• India will also showcase the move as one of its measures to crack down on financial irregularities, at the meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in Paris this year.