The CBI on Wednesday has registered four separate cases against several officials of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization at the Regional Office in Guntur including private persons for allegedly tampering with the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) accounts details and sharing them with private consultants for money.

The CBI conducted extensive searches at 40 residences and other places belonging to EPF officers in Guntur, Vijayawada, Ongole, Chirala, Guntupalli, and other places and seized key documents.

As per reports, the EPFO officers were allegedly receiving money from private provident fund consultants in return for performing their regular duties like claim settlements.

The CBI was given a tip-off about the gross misconduct of these EPFO officials and conducted a joint surprise check with the EPFO vigilance department in the regional office in Guntur. Their phones were seized and the officials were shocked to see information about EPFO beneficiaries like UAN, passwords, OTPs being shared with some phone numbers of private PF consultants. They were apparently paid through payment applications like Google Pay among others for giving these details the FIR stated. The employees received screenshots of payments made through mobile apps after they shared UAN and respective passwords with consultants, it alleged.

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