The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached movable assets worth Rs 40.64 crore under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in a case connected with fraud committed by a number of dubious merchants by routing the transactions through fraudulent mobile Applications using the services of payment solutions providers.
The ED had initiated money laundering investigation on the basis of an FIR dated June 1, 2021, registered by the Karnataka Police at Cyber Crime Police Station, CID Bengaluru under Indian Penal Code Section 420 (cheating). In the FIR, it was alleged that the accused entities induced the public
to invest through Powerbank/Sunfactory Applications by assuring to remit interest on daily or weekly basis, the ED said in a statement.
“The accused entities closed their purported business after collecting a huge sum of money from the gullible public. The accused entities neither paid interest nor returned the principal amount to the public and withheld the investment made by the public through Powerbank and other such fraudulent Applications which has resulted in commission of cheating,” it said.
Money laundering investigation by the ED revealed that the accused entities accepted investment of more than Rs 300 crore by setting up a merchant account on behalf of a seemingly legitimate business and availed Payment Solutions from Payment Gateways and Payment Solutions Companies, it said.
The accused entities deviated from their declared line of business/activity and collected money from the public by floating untenable investment schemes through Application listed on Google Playstore, it further said.
The funds have been settled into the accused entities’ bank accounts after collection of the same from the public in the name of investment with the help of illicit use of services provided by payment aggregators.
Accordingly, identified movable assets in the form of bank balances and amount withheld with the payment solutions providers to the tune of Rs 40.64 crore and the same have been provisionally attached under PMLA, it added.
