2020, the year that was: Bank frauds, drug hauls kept probe agencies busy

ED and CBI probed high-profile frauds; arrested Rana Kapoor, Deepak Kochchar

From investigating Rana Kapoor, once the most sought-after bankers, to freezing Amnesty International’s India bank accounts and even rounding up high-profile Bollywood stars, two of the Centre’s premier probe agencies — the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) — had a busy 2020.

Despite a nationwide lockdown, the enforcement agency issued notices to politicians while the NCB questioned and arrested people in the glamour world, alleged to have consumed and distributed banned substances.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), too, kept pace as it registered almost 60 new cases in the first 10 months of the year, of which