NEW DELHI: A Delhi-based company sold crypto currencies worth more than Rs 1,858 crore on crypto exchanges, raising an alarm at the Enforcement Directorate which then started an investigation after a case was registered by the Crime Branch of Delhi police.
Soon, a money trail by the officials of the anti-money laundering agency revealed that the accused had already made illegal foreign outward remittances of more than Rs 3,500 crore, a startling disclosure that led to further widening of the probe to unearth the actual beneficiaries of the hawala racket that led to transfer of black money to offshore tax havens.
The probe further revealed the accused had deposited cash of Rs 1,300 crore in several bank accounts here in shell entities. After a search, the ED arrested the main accused, Manideep Mago, who was allegedly laundering black money of several big businessmen by opening accounts in Canada and Hong Kong using hawala channels and crypto exchanges.
A special court here on Tuesday remanded Manideep to ED custody for five days for his interrogation and recording of statements. “During searches, it was revealed that an international hawala syndicate has been active in Delhi and was collecting cash from exporters/importers and remitting the same to foreign countries against bogus invoices. As part of this large operation, foreign outward remittances worth more than Rs 3,500 crore have been sent to Canada and Hong Kong,” the ED said.
The remittances were made against bogus invoices raised for online lease of GPU servers for crypto mining, educational softwares and lease of Bare Metal servers, the ED said, adding that the members of the syndicate incorporated companies in Hong Kong and Canada, for facilitating international hawala transactions. “The syndicate has invested heavily in illegal Crypto mining and arbitrage trading as part of their international hawala operations,” ED said, and claimed it has found evidence of involvement of chartered accountants and few bank officials.
The agency further disclosed that bogus invoices were generated in the name of 70,000 random names to justify the deposit of cash. The source of the crypto was not revealed by the accused persons so far, the ED said.
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