CBI seeks experts’ help to probe economic frauds

The central agency has also decided to empanel dedicated experts in five international languages – Russian, Spanish, French, Arabic and Italian – for translation of crucial court documents

New Delhi: Often criticised by courts for its slow pace of investigation in complex cases of corruption and economic frauds, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has decided to use the services of subject matter experts (SMEs) from the fields of foreign trade, banking, insurance, taxation and cost accounting, and corporate and company law, among others, officials familiar with the development said.

The experts will be part of CBI’s recently created technology and forensic vertical

The central agency has also decided to empanel dedicated experts in five international languages – Russian, Spanish, French, Arabic and Italian – for translation of crucial court documents such as minutes of meetings, agreements, interviews and court files necessary to establish the money trail in cases having cross-border links.

The SMEs, who will be part of CBI’s recently created technology and forensic vertical, will supplement the investigation teams with skills that are critical to understand the relevant subject, as well as identify the right kind of evidence to establish a fraud or international crime, one of the officials cited above said.

“The SMEs will develop the necessary protocols and methodologies such as the kind of evidence that is needed to be gathered, filtering for anomalies, understanding technical terms, international laws and transactions, etc., for different kinds of cases handled by us,” the official said, seeking anonymity.

Describing how SMEs can assist the agency, a second official said: “Foreign trade experts will help investigators understand various policies, procedures and legal provisions of various laws connected with foreign trade, SEZ (special economic zone), STPI (software technology parks of India), EOU (export-oriented units), etc.”

“Similarly, tax and legal experts can assist the teams in decoding various policies and laws connected with sales tax, value-added tax, professional tax, goods and services tax, etc., and corporate law experts can explain mergers, various international transactions related to takeovers,” the official said, declining to be named.

The CBI is currently investigating 1,054 cases related to corruption, financial frauds and violent crimes, with several cases pending from previous years. It registered 680 cases in 2021 and 122 till February 28 this year.

Besides banking experts, those from the fields of foreign trade, corporate law, insurance, etc., will be hired by the agency on an ad-hoc basis, the first official said.

While half a dozen Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officers are already posted in the CBI, the agency lacks expertise in various other fields, which leads to poor collection of evidence and delayed trials in complex financial crimes, officials said. The agency utilizes the services of bank officers, and income tax and custom officers on deputation from time to time to assist in fraud cases, they added.

On the plan to rope in five international language experts, a third CBI officer said: “Even though investigating officers use various tools to translate documents received from abroad, most of it is literal translation of the text without providing context to the document.”

“When a letter rogatory (LR or judicial request) is issued seeking evidence from a foreign jurisdiction, we receive responses in the official language of that particular country, adding to the translation work with the help of temporary translators. Even then, the accuracy is not achieved as most outside people don’t understand money trail documents. Hence, we need experts on languages who can complement IOs (investigating officers),” the officer said, wishing not to be named.

Welcoming the agency’s decision, former CBI joint director N R Wasan said: “SMEs are very important. For example, if a bridge collapses, can a police officer investigate it? Only a structural engineer can help understand what happened in the incident. Similarly, a large number of cases investigated by CBI are bank frauds, ponzi schemes, etc., which have multitude of entities through which a large number of financial transactions take place. The transactions layered across multiple entities in several geographical boundaries require special expertise.”