Mumbai/New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate has issued a blue notice — an international alert to law enforcement agencies to obtain information about a person’s identity and activities — against former IPL chairman and commissioner Lalit Modi in its probe into the finances of the T20 cricket tournament.

The blue notice alert, which will be executed by the Interpol, has been issued by the ED to gather further information about Modi’s whereabouts and his activities which is not known to the agency as he is in a foreign land, sources said.

Once such an alert is issued against an individual by a law enforcement agency in India, sleuths of the counterpart agency in a foreign land can intercept, question and in certain cases even detain the person, the sources said.

The ED is probing alleged violations under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) against various IPL franchises.

Modi, and in fact the BCCI, has also been under investigation by various government agencies following allegations of various irregularities in the IPL including money laundering.

The objective of a blue notice, according to the Interpol, is “to collect additional information about a person’s identity or activities in relation to a crime.”

Modi’s camp views the ED’s blue alert as an effort to bring him to India.

“A blue alert is a kind of lookout notice. It’s not an arrest warrant, like in the case of red alert. He (Modi) can’t be detained at any airport. But he can be brought and produced before the authorities who issued the alert,” a Modi aide said on Thursday.

“An alert is an extreme measure, done in the case of a hardened criminal absconding. But Modi has been co-operating and giving all the documents whenever asked,” the aide said.

“Although he has not come to India, he has offered to be available on video conference and meet the authorities concerned at the London office of the ED. So no one knows what prompted this alert.”