Links between two Maharashtra-based ‘institutions’ and an unspecified number of Canadian colleges – to illegally ferry Indian citizens across the United States-Canada border – have become the focus of an Enforcement Directorate inquiry, sources told NDTV Wednesday.

The investigation is linked to the deaths of a family of four Indians – from Dingucha village in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar district – in January 2022; their bodies were found frozen, in -35 degrees Celsius weather, on the Canadian side of the border. Inquiries since suggest they paid human smugglers an exorbitant sum – at least Rs 55 lakh each – to be illegally transported into the US.

The ED’s inquiry – into money laundering and associated financial crimes – followed police in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad filing a complaint against Bhavesh Ashokbhai Patel, the principal accused in the Dingucha-Canada deaths case, and a few others, who “hatched a well-planned conspiracy to send people (Indians) to the United States through Canada, via illegal channels…”

According to the federal agency, the modus operandi was to get their ‘clients’ admitted to certain colleges in Canada – with whom a deal had been struck – and so get student visas.

Once in Canada the ‘clients’ would be smuggled across the border and the money sent to the colleges – for ‘admission’ – returned. Sources said the ED has identified two ‘institutions’ – one in Mumbai, the other in Nagpur – that had such commission-based deals with Canadian colleges.

The ‘fee’ was between Rs 55 lakh and Rs 60 lakh per person, sources told NDTV.

Last week the ED raided eight places in Mumbai, Nagpur, Gandhinagar, and Vadodara, and seized documents indicating 25,000 Indian ‘students’ were being referred to Canadian colleges by one such ‘institution’ every year and over 10,000 by the other. These institutions, the documents said, had thousands of ‘agents’ based in Gujarat and other states across India.

The agency also froze Rs 19 lakh spread across multiple bank accounts.