Hyderabad ED raids five foreign currency outlets operating without RBI licence
The searches done under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999, revealed many irregularities, especially the absence of valid permissions
By - Newsmeter Network
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Hyderabad: Directorate of Enforcement (ED), Hyderabad Zonal Office, found five ‘Full Fledged Money Changers’ operating illegally without any valid licence from the RBI.
The ED officials, on Thursday, raided the premises of the five FFMCs – Prism Forex Private Limited, Garuda Forex Services Private Limited, Sree Vimal Nath Forex Private Limited, Victory Forex & Travel Services Private Limited and Digital Forex Private Limited.
What are FFMCs?
The searches done under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999, revealed many irregularities, especially the absence of valid permissions.
FFMCs are entities authorised to purchase foreign exchange from residents and non-residents visiting India and to sell foreign exchange for certain approved purposes.
RBI raids uncovered fake travellers and forged flight tickets
Earlier, RBI Hyderabad had inspected such FFMCs and found several irregularities such as KYC documents without corresponding travel tickets, false/fictitious traveller names, fake/forged flight tickets, manipulations in the date of flights and flight numbers, mismatch in signatures of customers, etc.
Most destinations on forged tickets were to countries where a visa is not required
Also, multiple copies of the same travel ticket were recovered with the key details forged. The ticket sales were mostly against travel to common destinations like Indonesia, the Maldives, Thailand and Sri Lanka, where a visa is not required.
RBI inspection led to the surrender of RBI licences by the FFMCs in June-July 2025.
The ED investigation revealed that even after the surrender of RBI licence, some FFMCs, namely Prism Forex Private Limited, Victory Forex & Travel Services Private Limited and Digital Forex Private Limited, were continuing to operate and engage in illegal money changing business, displaying fake/forged RBI licence in their premises.
Raids revealed unaccounted Indian and foreign currency
Searches under FEMA resulted in the recovery of incriminating documents, mobile phones and laptops containing records of illegal foreign currency transactions.
Searches also led to the seizure of unaccounted Indian currency to the tune of Rs 11.99 lakh and foreign currency of various countries in various denominations equivalent to Rs 26.77 lakh (approx.).
Further investigation is in progress.
