ROURKELA: Nearly three weeks after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided six places in Bonai, the agency on Saturday arrested two persons from the sub-division who along with others allegedly duped online gamers to the tune of Rs 400 crore by using Fiewin app.
ED, Kolkata arrested Arun Sahu and Alok Sahu of Bonai along with Chetan Prakash of Bihar and Joseph Stalin of Tamil Nadu under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Arun and Alok, both in their mid-20s, belong to Gogua village of Bonai and acted as ‘recharge persons’ while earning a fortune within a short span of time. The investigation by the ED was conducted based on an FIR registered at Cossipore police station in Kolkata against unknown persons for cheating and conspiracy.
In a release, ED, Kolkata said its probe revealed that Chinese nationals were operating the app with the help and support of Indians. Funds, mobilised from gullible online gamers through the app were deposited into the bank accounts of various individuals (called recharge persons) who had allowed use of their accounts by the app owners in lieu of certain commission. Arun and Alok, based out of Rourkela acted as ‘recharge persons’ and the funds received in their bank accounts from the Fiewin app were converted into crypto currency. They deposited and laundered the crypto currency to the wallets of Chinese nationals on foreign crypto exchange named Binance.
The agency added Prakash, an engineer based out of Patna, played a key role in the money laundering activities by helping the ‘recharge persons’ convert Indian Rupee into cryptocurrency of USDT (United States Department of Treasury). Stalin, a software engineer based out of Chennai, helped Chinese national Pie Pengyun from Gansu province become the co-director of Studio 21 Pvt Ltd, a company owned by him.
Pengyun used the account of Studio 21 Pvt Ltd for bulk payouts the funds for which were received by Stalin as crypto currency in his Binance account from wallets controlled by Chinese handlers. He converted the USDT cryptocurrency into Indian currency by selling the crypto in P2P mode on Binance. Around Rs 400 crore was generated from the fraud and the amount was credited to eight Binance wallets of Chinese nationals.