NEW DELHI: In another action against Chinese citizens and applications hosted in China, the Enforcement Directorate has seized Rs 47 million in HSBC bank accounts following raids on 15 facilities spread across Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Pune on Friday in a case involving illegal online gambling and dating apps.
Chinese citizens have been accused in the scam of using Indians to place illegal online gambling and raising more than Rs 1.3 billion. Some Chinese dating apps have also found large-scale transactions operating illegally for Indian clients.
Hyderabad police had previously arrested three people, including a Chinese citizen Yan Hao, who worked as a manager for the Beijing Tomorrow Power Company and was a permanent resident of Beijing. The ED has started an investigation into some Indian online wallets and payment gateways such as Paytm, Cashfree and Razorpay for failing to report suspicious transactions. “There is a suspicion that in addition to engaging in prohibited activities such as online gambling, this network of companies with its reliance on online wallets and lax regulatory systems could also have been used for hawala transactions. The ED is in the process of obtaining information from online wallet companies, HSBC Bank, Registrar of Companies, etc. ”The agency said.
On Friday, the Department of Education conducted searches in four cities and seized 17 hard drives, five laptops, telephones, crucial incriminating documents and has also frozen 47 million rupees in four HSBC Bank accounts.
Dhiraj Sarkar and Ankit Kapoor are the Indian associates arrested in the Chinese online gambling scam. “With the help of Indian public accountants, some Chinese nationals floated various Indian companies, initially kept fake Indian directors to incorporate the companies and then replaced them with Chinese nationals who traveled to India for this purpose,” ED stated.
Some locals were hired to open accounts with HSBC Bank and open business accounts with online wallets Paytm, Cashfree, Razorpay, etc. ED has initiated an investigation under PMLA based on the FIRs submitted by the Hyderabad Police Cybercrime Station against Dokypay Technology Pvt Ltd, Linkyun Technolgy Pvt Ltd and others.
“Analysis of two Dokypay Technology bank accounts revealed that, in the last year, it had raised Rs 1,268 crore of which Rs 300 crore came from the Paytm payment gateway and around Rs 600 crore was transferred via Paytm. Linkyun Technolgy made overseas remittances of Rs 120 crore.
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