New Delhi, July 4 The ED arrested a foreign currency businessman and one of the masterminds in a Chinese App investment fraud case involving over Rs 903 crore and seized incriminating documents during searches at his five premises in Delhi, an official said on Friday.
Rohit Vij, the mastermind in the conversion of proceeds of crime into forex, was arrested on June 30 for his links to a fake investment app named ‘LOXAM’, claiming to be related to a reputed French MNC Group of the same name.
The business entities and associates of Vij were searched under the provisions of PMLA, 2002, said an official.
After arresting Vij, the ED produced him in a Special PMLA Court, which sent him to the probe agency’s custody for five days.
The federal agency had initiated an investigation against Vij and his associates on the basis of the FIR registered by Cyber Crime, Hyderabad.
It was alleged that some Chinese individuals, in association with Indians, have defrauded various investors by luring and offering unrealistically high returns on investments through their fake investment app.
ED investigation revealed that the tainted money was collected in the bank account of a shell entity, M/s Xindai Technologies Pvt Ltd, which was formed in the name of an Indian person, on the instructions of a Chinese national, namely Jack.
The probe agency said Jack took the Internet Banking credentials and routed the funds collected through 38 mule accounts, which were subsequently converted into foreign currencies with the help of Vij and his associates through shell money changer entities like Ranjan Money Corp Pvt Ltd and KDS Forex Pvt Ltd, controlled by them, based in Delhi.
Vij and his associates converted the tainted amount into foreign currencies, mostly in US dollars and UAE Dirham, through multiple Authorised Money Changers (AMCs)/Full Fledged Money Changers (FFMCs), and gave them to a Chinese fraudster through various middlemen through hawala channels.
An amount totalling Rs 171.47 crore was laundered through M/s Xindai Technologies Pvt Ltd and subsequently converted into forex through M/s Ranjan Moneycorp Pvt Ltd and M/s KDS Forex Pvt Ltd.
However, from the analysis of bank accounts of M/s Ranjan Money Corp and M/s KDS Forex Pvt Ltd, it was found that within a period of seven months, these entities, under the control and operation of Rohit Vij, converted Rs 903 crore of similar tainted money generated by Chinese perpetrators of fraud and other accused persons.
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