The Enforcement Directorate (ED), a law enforcement agency of the Government of India that is responsible for enforcing Economic Laws and fighting Economic Crime, announced on Wednesday that it had frozen bank deposits worth Rs 123 crore following searches at 10 locations in Mumbai, Chennai, and Kochi under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act against “Chinese-controlled” betting and loan apps, which allegedly defrauded numerous individuals.
According to a statement by the ED, the searches were conducted on February 23 and 24 at the premises of NIUM India Pvt Ltd and its directors in Mumbai, Xoduz Solution Pvt Ltd, Vikrah Trading Enterprises Pvt Ltd, Tyrannus Technology Pvt Ltd, M/s Future Vision Media Solutions Pvt Ltd, M/s Aprikiwi Solution Pvt Ltd in Chennai and Raphael James Rozario in Kochi.
“The search operations also resulted in the recovery and seizure of several digital devices, various incriminating documents, multiple bank accounts used for laundering, and details of various movable and immovable assets of the accused persons and entities,” the ED stated.
The searches were aimed at “tracing and unearthing the proceeds of crime in the case of illegal online loan/gambling/betting apps through a cluster of mule accounts in Kerala,” the ED elaborated.
The investigation was initiated based on FIRs registered by Kerala and Haryana Police regarding allegations of exploitation and cheating through online loan, gambling, or betting apps controlled by Chinese entities.
“The proceeds of crime generated from the above apps/other platforms are aggregated and laundered through mule accounts opened in various banks in Kerala State using payment aggregators,” the ED explained.
Additionally, funds collected through multiple shell companies in several states, including Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai, were being remitted outside India through various channels such as cryptocurrency, against fake imports of software from Singapore and Forex currency purchases.
The ED disclosed that the accused had established numerous shell entities in India and used them to transfer proceeds of crime to shell companies established in Singapore. “These Singapore shell entities would raise fake invoices for the supply of software/other services in the name of the shell Indian entities in India, where the proceeds of crime would have already been aggregated,” the statement said.
“These invoices are processed by a global forex settlement platform named M/s NIUM Singapore Pte Ltd. (Singapore), which has an Indian subsidiary Company, namely NIUM India Pvt. Ltd., to collect money from Indian entities based on fake invoices and transfer the same as outward remittances to M/s NIUM Singapore Pte Ltd in the name of payment for technical services. These funds will then be credited to the virtual wallet of Singapore shell entities,” the ED added.
According to the ED, NIUM India collected no other documentation besides the fake invoices from the remitters.
“In this manner, the shell remitter, the shell remittee, and the sham import transactions were concealed from the Bank and monitoring agencies, and the proceeds of crime are thereby laundered out of India,” the ED concluded.
