Shimla. The Shimla sub-zonal office of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Milan Garg, Sukhdev Thakur and Abhishek Sharma in a money laundering probe into the much-discussed alleged cryptocurrency scam linked to cases registered in Himachal and Punjab.
ED arrested the three under Section 19(1) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. After this he was presented in the special PMLA court in Shimla. The court sent all three on 12-day ED remand for further investigation.
An ED spokesperson gave this information on Friday. He said that ED had started this investigation on the basis of FIR registered by Himachal Pradesh and Punjab Police against Subhash Sharma and other accused.
According to the investigation, the accused created many fake investment platforms like Corveo, DGT, Hypnext and A-Global and lured people with high and assured profits and made them invest in large numbers.
Investigations by investigating agencies and ED revealed that in the year 2018, Subhash Sharma along with Hem Raj, Milan Garg, Sukhdev Thakur, Abhishek Sharma and other associates started a cryptocurrency based multi-level marketing (MLM) scheme.
For this, an online platform was created, which was later transferred to Digital Ocean’s overseas servers and run through domains like korvio.io and voscrow.com.
According to the ED, people were given false assurance of high and fixed profits by investing in Corveo Coin (KRO). For this, promotional programs were organized, token prices were manipulated and the money raised from new investors was used to pay the old investors. The investigating agency says that this entire system was being run like a Ponzi scheme.
ED spokesperson said that digital records and domain related data were also deleted to hide the fraud. However, the digital evidence recovered revealed that more than 2.48 lakh people became victims of this alleged fraud.
The investigation has revealed transactions worth more than US$219 million and the loss to investors is estimated to be around Rs 500 crore.
In the investigation, ED has described Milan Garg as the main mastermind and technical expert of this entire network. According to the agency, he developed and controlled platforms such as Corvio/Voscro, Hypnext and A-Global.
He operated cryptocurrency wallets, arranged for investors to move from one platform to another, controlled the flow of investors’ funds, played a role in converting cash into cryptocurrencies, and monitored technical and financial activities.
According to ED, Sukhdev Thakur and Abhishek Sharma were among the early propagators of this alleged scheme. Both of them attracted a large number of investors by promising people more profits.
Investigation also revealed that both of them collected huge amount of cash from investors and delivered it to Vijay Juneja, Mashum Juneja and other co-accused on the instructions of Subhash Sharma.
The investigating agency says both the accused earned huge commission from this scheme and also acquired beneficial stake in properties purchased with the crime proceeds. According to ED, Sukhdev Thakur has been found to have 10 percent and Abhishek Sharma’s 5 percent beneficial stake in the property named Juneja Square.
ED also said that Sukhdev Thakur operated bank accounts and cryptocurrency wallets through which funds related to the alleged scam were transacted.
At the same time, big financial transactions have been found in Abhishek Sharma’s bank account with people and entities who are accused of laundering the money earned from crime through cryptocurrency and real estate projects.
All three accused were already in judicial custody in the original criminal case. In such a situation, ED applied for production warrant in the special PMLA court, Shimla.
After getting the court’s permission, all three were formally arrested. The ED is now investigating how much of the proceeds of crime was generated from this alleged crypto fraud and how it was laundered.
ED said that earlier in this case, Hem Raj and Mashoom Juneja have also been arrested on charges of money laundering, while the main accused in this case, Subhash Sharma is still absconding.
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