The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Mumbai, on Thursday, April 18, provisionally attached immovable and movable properties worth Rs 97.79 crore belonging to Ripu Sudan Kundra, alias Raj Kundra, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
The attached properties include a residential flat in Juhu currently under the name of a Bollywood actress and Raj Kundra's wife, Shilpa Shetty, a residential bungalow situated in Pune, and equity shares in Kundra's name, said ED on Thursday.
According to the FPJ report, the central probe agency initiated investigation on the basis of FIRs registered by Maharashtra and Delhi Police against Variable Tech Pte Ltd, Late Amit Bhardwaj, Ajay Bhardwaj, Vivek Bhardwaj, Simpy Bhardwaj, Mahender Bhardwaj and number of MLM agents, wherein it has been alleged that they had collected huge amounts of funds in the form of Bitcoins (worth Rs 6600 Crore in 2017 itself) from the gullible public with the false promises of 10% per month return in the form of cryptocurrency.
ED investigation revealed that Raj Kundra received 285 Bitcoins from the mastermind and promoter of the Gain Bitcoin Ponzi Scam, Amit Bhardwaj, for setting up a Bitcoin mining farm in Ukraine. The Bitcoins were supposed to be used for mining, and investors were supposed to get huge returns in Crypto assets. However, the promoters cheated the investors and have been concealing the ill-gotten Bitcoins in obscure online wallets. The said Bitcoins were sourced out of proceeds of crime collected by Amit Bhardwaj from gullible investors.