When the complainant was told that he would have to pay Rs 5 lakh more as his trading account had been blocked, he realised that he was being conned. (File)The Enforcement Directorate (ED) Friday said it has arrested a man for allegedly using his cryptocurrency account to park illegal funds. The action is part of the agency’s money laundering investigation against the promoter of a Kolkata-based gaming app that is alleged to have cheated a number of people.
“Romen Agarwal is actively involved in inter/intra country transactions related to transfer of ill-gotten money within and outside the country received from criminals. He acts as a conduit for arrangement of parking, routing and transferring of funds generated from illegal activities. He has used his crypto exchange accounts for parking of funds received from Aamir Khan, the main accused in the E-Nuggets App case,” said an ED spokesperson on Friday. Agarwal was sent to ED custody till October 28 by a special court in Kolkata.
A few days ago, the ED froze Bitcoins worth Rs 7.12 crore and seized Rs 1.65 crore in cash in the case against the E-Nuggets app and its promoter Khan.
“The ED carried out a search operation at two premises in Kolkata, leading to the seizure of Rs 1.65 crore cash and freezing of 44.5 Bitcoin (equivalent to Rs 7.12 crore as per market exchange rates) and other incriminating documents,” an ED statement had said.
According to ED, the agency had raided the premises of the app’s company and that of Khan and his father Nesar Ahmed Khan in Kolkata last month and had seized Rs 17.32 crore in cash from there. Before this, it froze Bitcoins and some bank deposits. “With the latest action, the total seizure amount in this case stands at Rs 51.16 crore. As many as 300 accounts were used to launder funds of gamers,” the ED said.
Khan was arrested by the detective department of the Kolkata Police from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh last month. “The money laundering case stems from an FIR filed by the Kolkata Police against the company and its promoters in February 2021. The FIR was registered at the Park Street police station based on a complaint filed by the Federal Bank authorities before a court in Kolkata,” the agency had said.
The agency found that Khan launched the gaming application E-Nuggets, which was designed for the purpose of defrauding innocent people. “After collecting a sizable amount of money from the public, all of a sudden withdrawal from the said app was stopped on one pretext or the other. Later, all data, including profile information, was wiped off from the said app servers. The accused was transferring part of the amount illegally earned through the gaming app to overseas locations by using crypto currency exchange,” it said.