ED freezes crypto assets worth Rs 12 crore in mobile fraud app case
Earlier this month, the ED conducted a search on the company's offices as well as that of Khan and his father, Nesar Ahmed Khan, in Kolkata, where they confiscated Rs 17.32 crore in cash. Aamir Khan was arrested by the detective department of the Kolkata Police from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh last week.
FollowThe Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday declared that it has frozen bitcoins worth Rs 12.83 crore as part of an ongoing money laundering probe against the promoter of a Kolkata-based mobile gaming app firm that is alleged to have duped a number of people.
Aamir Khan, the owner of the mobile gaming software E-Nuggets, is the owner of cryptocurrency valued at 77.62710139 bitcoins that is housed on the Binance cryptocurrency exchange, according to a statement from the federal investigation agency. Earlier this month, the ED conducted a search on the company's offices as well as that of Khan and his father, Nesar Ahmed Khan, in Kolkata, where they confiscated Rs 17.32 crore in cash.
Aamir Khan was arrested by the detective department of the Kolkata Police from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh last week.
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The Kolkata Police filed a FIR against the firm and its promoters in February 2021, which is the basis for the money laundering case. According to the ED, this FIR was lodged at the Park Street police station in response to a complaint made by Federal Bank officials to a court in Kolkata. The organisation discovered that Khan had introduced the gambling programme E-Nuggets, which was created with the intention of "defrauding" the general people.
"After receiving a sizeable donation from the public, the app suddenly ceased allowing withdrawals under various pretexts. After then, all data, including profile data, was deleted from the aforementioned app servers," the agency said.
The agency claimed that the accused was utilising cryptocurrency exchange to send some of the money "illegally obtained" through the gaming app to other countries.
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"It was found that one such dummy account in the name of Sima Naskar (proprietor of Pixal Design) was opened in the WazirX crypto exchange, which was used to purchase crypto currencies. The aforementioned digital assets were then moved to another account at Binance, another cryptocurrency exchange," the investigative agency added.
The balance of this crypto amount (77.62710139 Bitcoins) is equivalent to USD 15,73,466 or about Rs 12.83 crore kept in Binance crypto exchange and that has been freezed, it said.
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