China gambling racket: locals hired and used to open accounts with HSBC Bank
New Delhi:
The Enforcement Directorate has frozen Rs 46.96 million rupees in four bank accounts after raiding 15 locations in Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Pune after some companies were allegedly running illegal online gambling applications linked to China. The public accountants of these firms were also raided, the ED said in a statement.
“Searches were made of the registered offices of companies, their directors and public accountants involved in the illegal execution of online gambling applications from websites hosted outside of India,” the ED said.
“During the course of the search, the Department of Education has identified several bank accounts mostly maintained with HSBC Bank. Analysis of 2 bank accounts of Dokypay Technology Pvt Ltd revealed that in the last year, the account recorded a collection of Rs 1,268 crore of which Rs 300 crore came through the Paytm payment gateway and around Rs 600 crore was transferred through the Paytm payment gateway, “said the Directorate of Execution.
The ED had launched an investigation under the Anti-Money Laundering Act into the First Information Reports (FIRs) filed by the Hyderabad Police Cybercrime Division against Dokypay Technology Pvt Ltd, Linkyun Technolgy Pvt Ltd and others .
Three defendants have been identified as Yan Hao, 24, manager of Beijing Tomorrow Power Company; Dhiraj Sarkar and Ankit Kapoor.
“During the investigation, it was revealed that with the help of some Indian CPAs, some Chinese citizens floated various Indian companies. Initially, fake Indian directors were used to incorporate the companies, and after a while, Chinese citizens traveled to India. and they assumed the leadership in these companies, “the ED said in the statement.
“Some locals were hired and used to open bank accounts with HSBC Bank and open business accounts with online wallets, namely Paytm, Cashfree, Razorpay, etc. These online wallets had lax due diligence mechanisms and did not report suspicious transactions to the regulatory authorities. The authorities assisted the accused companies to launch operations across India, “the Enforcement Directorate said in the statement.
“After the bank accounts were opened, the Indian employees sent the Internet access credentials to China by courier and the main payment instructions came from the beneficial owners who were securely installed in China. The accused companies launched a large number of similar-looking websites that were hosted through Cloudfare, USA These websites attracted gullible people to become members and place bets on various online applications, which promised attractive rewards in simple games of chance ” the investigating agency said.
“… Paytm and Cashfree were used to collect money and pay commissions to agent members. Hundreds of websites were created to promote online gambling under the guise of e-commerce. Not all websites were activated on a daily basis. Some they were activated to place bets and the information on the daily active websites was shared with the members using Telegram groups, “said the ED.
The case comes amid growing tension between India and China over border issues. India has responded by slowing down trade with Chinese companies and allowing more room for growth for domestic companies.
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