New Delhi [India], January 7 (ANI): The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday said it has attached movable and immovable properties totalling Rs 91.82 crore in the case of “illegal betting operations” of the Mahadev Online Book (MOB) and Skyexchange.com.
In the current action, the ED attached bank balances totalling Rs 74,28,87,483 held in the names of Perfect Plan Investment LLC and Exim General Trading – GZCO.
ED as these entities belong to the accused Sourabh Chandrakar, Anil Kumar Agarwal and Vikas Chhaparia and utilised by them to conceal and project Proceeds of Crime (PoC) as untainted investments.
Also, the agency, in a statement, said properties worth Rs 17.5 crore were attached belonging to Gagan Gupta, a close associate of Hari Shankar Tibrewal (the owner of Skyexchange.com). “The attached properties include high-value real estate and liquid assets held in the names of Gagan Gupta’s family members, which have been found to be acquired or purchased out of cash generated.”
ED investigation has revealed that illegal betting apps, namely Mahadev Online Book, Skyexchange.com, generated huge amounts of POC, which were laundered through a complex web of benami bank accounts.
“It has been further revealed that Sourabh Chandrakar and others cheated and defrauded the public through an online platform called Mahadev Online Book Application,” said the federal agency.
Mahadev Online Book Application was created to facilitate multiple illegal betting websites or mobile applications (APPs) to acquire customers and to take care of the financial operations for these illegal betting games/websites. However, in the process, the websites were rigged in such a manner that all the customers ultimately would lose money. Thousands of crores worth of funds were collected and distributed in a pre-determined profit-sharing manner.
Furthermore, fabricated or stolen KYC were also used to open Bank Accounts and illegal betting proceeds were layered to hide their origin. All these transactions were neither accounted for nor brought into the tax net.
ED said the investigation further disclosed that “the POC generated through these illegal betting platforms were transferred outside India through hawala channels, trade-based Money laundering transactions, and the use of crypto-assets and subsequently routed back and invested in the Indian stock market in the name of foreign FPIs.”
“Investigation conducted by ED also unearthed a sophisticated ‘cashback’ scheme where said FPI entities would invest heavily in Indian listed companies and in return, the promoters of these companies were required to pay 30 per cent to 40 per cent of the investment back in cash. Gagan Gupta is identified as a beneficiary of at least Rs 98 crore (PoC) from such transactions, involving entities like Salasar Techno Engineering Ltd and Tiger Logistics Ltd,” said the ED.
So far, the ED has conducted searches at more than 175 premises in this case. As a result of the ongoing investigation, movable and immovable assets worth Rs. 2,600 crores have been seized, frozen, or attached.
Further, ED has arrested 13 persons in the case, and 74 entities have been arraigned as accused in five Prosecution Complaints filed so far.
(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)
