ED officer who led probes in Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya cases, takes VRS 11 years before retirement

One of the Enforcement Directorate's most consequential officers has walked away from government service, eleven years before he was due to retire. Satyabrata Kumar, former ED Special Director and lead investigator in some of India's most high-profile money laundering cases, has taken voluntary retirement from service at the age of 48.

Who is Satyabrata Kumar?

A 2004-batch IRS officer of the Customs and Indirect Taxes cadre, Kumar had been posted as Commissioner (Appeals) in Siliguri, West Bengal, after being repatriated from the ED about a year ago. He had served in the agency for nearly twelve years, one of the longest deputation stints in the ED's history.

The Union government approved his VRS application in April, with formal orders issued earlier this month. Kumar was scheduled to retire in 2037. Sources told PTI that he chose to leave government service to pursue personal interests.

The cases that defined his career

Kumar led investigations out of the ED's Mumbai-based western regional office, and the cases under his watch read like a catalogue of India's most significant financial crimes over the past decade.

He headed the probe into the alleged USD 2 billion bank fraud perpetrated by diamond traders Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, a case that exposed deep vulnerabilities in the country's banking system and resulted in the attachment of several foreign-based assets identified as proceeds of crime in the PNB fraud.

He also led the investigation into the bank loan fraud case against liquor baron Vijay Mallya and handled a string of cases involving politicians from Maharashtra.

More recently, Kumar's team took on the Mahadev online betting app case, in which investigations uncovered links to politicians and businessmen based in Chhattisgarh.

A pattern worth noting

Kumar's departure is the second time in less than a year that a senior ED officer has resigned from government service shortly after leaving the agency.

In July 2025, Kapil Raj, a former ED Joint Director who had supervised the arrests of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in separate money laundering cases, resigned from service fifteen years ahead of his scheduled retirement.

Raj, a 2009-batch IRS officer who had spent eight years in the ED, stepped down while serving as Additional Commissioner in the GST Intelligence wing in Delhi.

(With inputs from PTI)