ED arrests kingpin of a cyber syndicate involved in siphoning off Rs 4,978 from 2020 to 2024

New Delhi [India], March 13 : The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested the kingpin of a cyber syndicate on charges of layering and siphoning off Rs 4,978 crore generated from various cyber-crimes and online gaming ongoing all across India during 2020 to 2024, the agency said on Wednesday.
The cyber fraudster, identified as Ashish Kakkar, was arrested on March 2 from Hotel Holiday Inn in Gurugram under Section 19 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
ED initiated an investigation on the basis of First Information Reports (FIRs) registered all over India including a few registered in Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. Kakkar is accused of defrauding the general public of their hard-earned money by committing various types of Cyberfraud, generating the proceed of crime (PoC) and ultimately siphoning of the PoC out of India.
Cybercrime fraudsters have used different modus for cheating and generation of proceeds of crime such as investment fraud, part-time job fraud, online shopping fraud and loan fraud. One of the most prevalent modus used for duping the general public of their hard-earned money is to lure the general public in investment fraud wherein initially the cybercrime fraudsters offered a guaranteed profit against investment (like multi-marketing scheme) and provided a luring return to develop faith in the customer. Thereafter, they lure the customer to invest in some fraud scheme wherein they offer handsome returns. By this way, cyberfraudster lure customers to invest their lifesavings and when customer demands their return then these fraudsters ask them to pay another sum in the guise of certain taxation or processing fees etc. This continues until the customer himself stops investing their fund and the fund invested and transferred to the bank accounts provided by the fraudsters is gone.
"After cheating and defrauding the general public, the proceeds of crime were layered and accumulated in the bank accounts of the companies and firms controlled by Kakkar and his associates and subsequently sent out of India as foreign outward remittances. Kakkar and his other associates have created more than 200 companies and firms (wherein Ashish Kakkar is the beneficial owner) in the name of their employees or based on the KYCs of persons hired for sole purpose of creation of dummy firms and companies," said the ED.
Kakkar, who himself is neither a director nor any office holder in these companies, the ED said, controls each transaction going on in the bank accounts of these companies through his loyal associates.
In order to control the bank account in various banks, the agency said, Kakkar has forged the documents used in opening and operations of bank accounts. "All the companies controlled by Ashish Kakkar were incorporated on similar dates and have same addresses having common directors. All these dummy companies have substantial banking transactions but have not filed their financial statements with RoC."
ED said its detailed investigation has revealed that for the purpose of siphoning off the PoC, Kakkar imported huge number of consignments declaring high-value items (such as Rose Oil, Solar Panel machinery) from Dubai, Hong Kong, China etc. in various Special Economic Zones such as SEZ Mundra, and SEZ Kandla and subsequently exported the same from the SEZs itself.
"Kakkar and others have sent outward remittances to the tune of Rs 4978 Crores against imports but no remittances have been realized against export of goods from SEZ. In other words, Kakkar is involved in the Circular Trading by way of import-export for the purpose of Hawala transactions."
Earlier, ED has conducted search and seizure action on May 22-23 last year at 25 premises in Delhi (11), Gujarat (7), Maharashtra (4), Madhya Pradesh (2) and Andhra Pradesh (1).
Further, search and seizure action were conducted at 14 premises on February 15 and, 16 this year, as well as on March 2 and 3 in relation to the investigation being done against foreign registered online gaming companies and websites operating in India.
During the searches, the agency said, foreign make gold bars totally weighing 8 kgs (valued at Rs 5.04 crore), cash amounting to Rs 75 lakh, jewellery, high-end luxury watches, high-end luxury cars including Mercedes, Audi and Kia, incriminating documents, and electronic devices containing incriminating data were seized.
Several PAN cards and Aadhar cards used for creating such firms, mobiles used for operating bank accounts of these firms and office stamps were seized from the premises of Kakkar.
"To escape themselves from investigating agencies, they are using remote-based server/laptops which are being used through remote access apps like Anydesk, Team Viewer etc. In the instant case, two such remotely accessed laptops have also been recovered and seized from the premises of entity providing server services located far away from the actual operational places," added the ED.