The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has taken possession of movable properties worth about ₹55.36 crore in the form of balances available in the bank accounts and merchant IDs held by various shell and Chinese-linked entities in connection with a case involving mobile app HPZ Token and others.
After freezing the assets, the central agency had filed an application before the adjudicating authority under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), which upheld the decision and allowed the retention of properties.
The ED probe is based on a first information report (FIR) registered by the Cyber Crime police station in Nagaland’s capital Kohima alleging that thousands of investors were duped on the false promise of phenomenal returns on investments for mining bitcoins.
“The modus operandi of the fraudsters was to first lure the victims into investing in the company on the pretext of doubling their investment through the app, HPZ Token. Similarly, investments were also received fraudulently for online gaming and betting,” said the agency on Wednesday.
According to the ED, shell entities having dummy directors or proprietors had opened bank accounts and merchant IDs only for the purpose of rotating and layering the funds fraudulently received for illegal online gaming, betting and investments for bitcoin mining. On an investment of ₹57,000, returns of ₹4,000 per day for three months was promised. However, the money was paid only once and thereafter, fresh funds were sought.
In this case, the ED had earlier conducted searches at 26 locations in 2022 and 18 locations this year. It has so far frozen assets worth about ₹176.67 crore.
