HYDERABAD: The Special Court for Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) cases in Hyderabad has granted the Enforcement Directorate (ED) eight-day custody of Chinese national Yan Hao, along with Dhiraj Sarkar and Ankit Kapoor.
They were first arrested by Hyderabad city police in connection with a money laundering case related to online betting apps run by Chinese nationals, after which the ED registered a case and arrested them on September 15. The eight-day custody will be from September 22 - 29.
ED initiated investigation under the PMLA based on the initial cases registered by Hyderabad police under the charges of cheating, conspiracy, Telangana State Gambling Act, 2017, and Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978, against Dokypay Technology Private Limited, Linkyun Technology Private Limited and others involved in the `1,000 crore online betting scam.
It was revealed that the accused floated a large number of websites to attract people to join them and place bets on various online platforms which promised attractive rewards on simple games. They used Paytm and Cashfree to collect money and paid commission to all these agent members.
Following this, searches were conducted by the agency at 15 locations in Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Pune which resulted in seizure of 17 hard disks, five laptops, phones and crucial incriminating documents. ED has also frozen `46.96 crore held in four accounts in HSBC Bank.
Further investigation to identify the major beneficiaries of the payouts from Paytm and HSBC bank accounts is still under progress.
According to ED officials, it is suspected that these websites also acted as payment aggregators for multiple platforms which were banned by Google Play Store for lax technical security, data theft or betting activities.