https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2020/09/22/ed-continues-crackdown-on-chinese-betting-apps-under-prevention-of-money-laundering-act.html

Chinese betting online apps are the latest headache of the Enforcement Directorate, which has been probing illegally running online betting apps from websites which are hosted outside the country.

On Tuesday, the special Prevention of Money Laundering (PMLA) court in Hyderabad granted the ED eight-day custody of Chinese national Yan Hao, Dhiraj Sarkar and Ankit Kapoor, who had been arrested by the agency on September 15 in connection with a money laundering case relating to the online betting apps run

by Chinese nationals. Summons have also been issued to various persons, including the Chinese nationals who are directors of the companies under investigation.

In the first of its kind probe by the anti-money laundering agency, the ED had begun probing the case of money laundering against the Chinese national and others under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, on the basis of FIRs lodged by cybercrime station of Hyderabad Police under sections 420 and 120B of IPC, the Telangana State Gambling Act 2017, and Prize Chits and Money Circulation Scheme Act against M/s Dokypay Technology Private Limited and M/s Linkyun Technology Private Limited, and others involved in online betting scam.

According to the ED, the accused floated large number of websites to attract gullible persons to become members and place bets on various online apps which promised attractive rewards on simple games of chance.

''Paytm and Cashfree were used to collect money and pay commission to all these agent members. Hundreds of websites were created to promote online betting under the garb of e-commerce,'' said an ED official.

The ED had earlier conducted searches at 15 locations in Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Pune, which resulted in seizure of 17 hard disks, five laptops, phones and crucial incriminating documents.

ED has also frozen Rs 46.96 crore held in four accounts in HSBC Bank. Sources in ED said investigation under PMLA were still going on to identify the major beneficiaries of the payouts from Paytm and HSBC Bank accounts.

It is suspected that these websites were also used as payment aggregators for multiple apps which were banned by Google Play Store for lax technical security, data theft or betting activities.

The ED officials said the accused companies were also planning to set up a NBFC (non banking financial company ) for micro credits, but were not granted license by regulatory authorities.

The quantum of fraud could be more than Rs 1,000 crore, said an official.

The custodial interrogation of the three accused is underway to unearth the entire scam.