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

 Man arrested from Ahmedabad in cash-for-votes case probe

PTI, MUMBAI, NOV 20, 2024: The Enforcement Directorate 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, official sources said. 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), they said. The ED action came when polling for the Maharashtra Assembly elections was underway. 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) asset 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 recognises 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 per cent per month return in the form of Bitcoins.

It was alleged by the ED that the Bitcoins were supposed to be utilised 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.

In a related development, the central agency on Wednesday arrested a man in a Maharashtra cash-for-votes case-linked money laundering investigation after he was intercepted at the Ahmedabad international airport, official sources said. Nagani Akram Mohammad Shafi was first detained by immigration authorities at the airport in neighbouring Gujarat on the basis of a lookout circular (LOC) issued by the ED. He was "trying to flee" to Dubai, they said. The man has been arrested under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the sources said.

The ED conducted searches in poll-bound Maharashtra and Gujarat last week in the case registered against a Malegaon-based trader, Siraj Ahmed Harun Meman, who allegedly misused bank accounts of various people to carry out transactions worth more than Rs 100 crore. BJP leader Kirit Somaiya had flagged these transactions calling it a case of "vote jihad scam" wherein cash was allegedly given to voters in exchange for their votes in the assembly polls. Polling for the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly was held on Wednesday.

The money laundering case stems from a November 7 Malegaon Police FIR filed against Meman, who runs a tea and cold drinks agency, and some of his associates. The complainant in the case is a Malegaon-based man named Jayes Lotan Misal whose bank account was allegedly misused for illegal transactions, triggering speculation that the accounts were used for routing election funds. Shafi, according to the sources, was among those persons on whose instructions Meman opened over a dozen bank accounts in the Nashik Merchant Cooperative Bank and also allegedly transferred funds worth Rs 14 crore through hawala.