Lagatar24 desk
Bengaluru, Sept 3: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) stated that it is conducting raids at the Bengaluru premises of online payment gateways like Razorpay, Paytm and Cashfree on Saturday as part of an ongoing probe against illegal instant smartphone-based loans by Chinese individuals.
According to a statement, the searches were launched on Friday at six premises in Bengaluru. The search operation is in progress, ED said.
During the raids, the federal probe agency said it seized Rs 17 crores worth of funds kept in ‘merchant IDs and bank accounts of these Chinese persons-controlled entities’.
The modus operandi of these is that they use fake documents of Indians and make them dummy directors leading to the generation of ‘proceeds of crime’, which is alleged.
“It has come to notice that the said entities were doing their suspected/illegal business through various merchant IDs/accounts held with payment gateways/banks,” the ED stated.
“The premises of Razorpay Pvt Ltd, Cashfree Payments, Paytm Payment Services Ltd and entities controlled/operated by Chinese persons are covered in the search operation,” ED confirmed.
The entities under investigation, according to the agency, are not operating from the addresses listed on the MCA (ministry of corporate affairs) website or registered addresses and instead use ‘fake’ addresses. The entities under investigation were generating proceeds of crime through various merchant IDs/accounts held with payment gateways/banks.
The Bengaluru Police cyber crime station filed at least 18 FIRs against “numerous entities/persons in connection with their involvement in extortion and harassment of the public who had availed small amount of loans through the mobile apps being run by those entities/persons,” according to the ED, which claimed that these FIRs served as the foundation for its money laundering case.
