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Man arrested in crypto-related money laundering case worth over Rs 1,800 Crore
New Delhi:
The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday said it has arrested a Delhi-based man for money laundering as his company allegedly sold cryptocurrencies worth over Rs 1,800 crore.
Manideep Mago was taken into custody under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and produced before a special court in Delhi on Tuesday.
The court remanded him to emergency custody until June 23, the central agency said in a statement.
The ED said it initially initiated proceedings against the company under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and searched its premises “based on source information that a Delhi-based company sold crypto- coins worth over Rs 1,858 crore on crypto exchanges.” A preliminary investigation revealed that overseas remittances worth over Rs 3,500 crore were made by the company and its related entities, it said.
Cash deposits of over Rs 1,300 crore were also made in the bank accounts of related entities, the ED alleged.
FEMA’s research revealed that an international ‘hawala’ syndicate was active in Delhi and collected money from exporters/importers and remitted it to foreign countries against fake invoices, it said.
In this way, the agency said, remittances worth over Rs 3,500 crore were sent to Canada and Hong Kong against fake invoices issued for “online rental of GPU servers for “cryptocurrency mining, educational software, bare server rental”. Syndicate members incorporated companies in Hong Kong and Canada to facilitate international hawala and invested heavily in illegal crypto mining and arbitrage trading as part of their operations, it said.
“ED has found evidence of involvement of chartered accountants and a few bank officials,” the central probe agency said.
The agency also said fake and falsified invoices were generated under 70,000 random names and entered into the tally database to justify depositing cash.
The source of the crypto was not revealed by the accused, according to the release.
The ED said it shared these FEMA search results with the crime branch of the Delhi Police, which filed an FIR against the company and others.
Based on this complaint, the agency registered a case of money laundering.
Before the ED, Mago was arrested by the Delhi Police.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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