ED raids premises of audit company employee amid charges of Bitcoin use in Maha polls

ED raids premises of Gaurav Mehta in connection with alleged Bitcoin scam

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday conducted searches at the Chhattisgarh premises of an auditing company employee, allegedly linked to a political Bitcoin transactions case in Maharashtra, as part of a money laundering investigation. The house of Gaurav Mehta in Chhattisgarh’s capital city Raipur is being covered under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The BJP on Tuesday played purported voice notes of NCP (SP) leader and Baramati MP Supriya Sule and Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole alleging attempts were being made to encash Bitcoins to influence the elections. ED sources said the agency has widened its ongoing money laundering probe into a crypto (Bitcoin) assets ponzi scam and is investigating the “links” of Mehta and some others with politicians, politically exposed persons, and bureaucrats.

The agency attached assets worth Rs.98 crore of actor Shilpa Shetty and her husband Raj Kundra in April as part of this crypto-ponzi probe. The couple challenged the ED action and got relief from the Bombay High Court. Sharing some audio clips, in which voices and signal chats purportedly of Sule and Patole allegedly indicate that Bitcoins were used for funding the poll campaign, BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said it is clear that the MVA has seen the writing on the wall that it will be defeated in the polls.

Sule has denied the charges and said she has filed a complaint with the Election Commission and the cybercrime department of the state against the false allegations. She told reporters on Wednesday that she “did not know Gaurav Mehta”. Patole also dismissed the BJP’s allegations and said, “The voice in the clip being circulated is not mine. Even (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi recognizes my voice.”

The ED’s money laundering probe in the crypto-ponzi case stems from FIRs of Maharashtra Police and Delhi Police against a company named Variable Tech Pvt Ltd; individuals named (late) Amit Bhardwaj, Ajay Bhardwaj, Vivek Bhardwaj, Simpy Bhardwaj and Mahender Bhardwaj; and a number of multi-level marketing agents who are alleged to have collected huge amounts of funds in the form of Bitcoins (worth Rs.6,600 crore in 2017) from the public with the “false promise” of 10 percent per month return in the form of Bitcoins.

It was alleged by the ED that the Bitcoins were supposed to be utilized for mining and investors were supposed to get huge returns in crypto assets but the promoters “cheated” the investors and have been concealing the “ill-gotten” Bitcoins in obscure online wallets. Kundra, the ED alleged, received 285 Bitcoins from the “mastermind” and promoter of Gain Bitcoin Ponzi “scam” Amit Bhardwaj for “setting up” a Bitcoin mining farm in Ukraine.

These Bitcoins were sourced from the “proceeds of crime” collected by Amit Bhardwaj from gullible investors, it said. The agency arrested three people — Simpy Bhardwaj, Nitin Gaur, and Nikhil Mahajan — in the case last year. The main accused Ajay Bhardwaj and Mahendra Bhardwaj are absconding, the ED said, adding that it attached properties worth Rs.69 crore in the case earlier. Two chargesheets have been filed in the case till now — the first in June 2019 and the second in February this year.

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