- Thursday, January 23, 2025
The fraudsters “misused” special economic zone facilities and related export-import permissions to transfer the proceeds of cyber crime outside India
By: India Weekly
THE ENFORCEMENT DIRECTORATE Thursday said two Delhi-based “cyber criminals” siphoned off more than ₹49 billion (£460.28m) abroad by “misusing” special economic zone (SEZ) facilities.
The two accused – Punit Kumar alias Puneet Maheshwari alias John, a resident of Moti Nagar area, and Ashish Kakkar alias Pablo, a resident of Greater Kailash – were arrested by the federal agency last year as part of this investigation.
On January 17, ED in a statement said a provisional order was issued to attach nine residential flats in Delhi and a parcel of agricultural land in Rewari, Haryana, in the name of the two people and their families.
The ED said it got on to the case after taking cognisance of multiple police FIRs registered across the country against people involved in crimes like online gaming fraud, multi-level marketing schemes and investment scams, including part-time job frauds, online shopping and fake loans disbursal frauds through mobile apps.
These “scams” were perpetrated through various “fraud” websites and apps like upbitro.com (instead of original upbit.com) and a betting website www.taj777.com created by companies based in island nations like Curacao, Malta, and Cyprus, as per the agency.
It said more than 200 companies, registered in the names of the two accused, were used for “layering” the proceeds of crime.
These firms were also registered in the name of their employees like office boys, drivers, and sweepers.
Their signatures were taken on documents and “misused” to operate the companies and linked bank accounts, it said.
In order to take these proceeds of cyber crime outside India, the ED alleged, the two people “misused” special economic zone (SEZ) facilities by obtaining GST registrations and related export-import permissions.
The two imported highly “over-valued” goods (with rates spiked as much as 5,000 times) such as rose oil and solar panel machinery through SEZs like Mundra and Kandla from Dubai, Hong Kong and China etc. and made “huge illegal outward foreign remittances” abroad against import.
Thereafter, the ED alleged, the same goods were re-exported (without any processing) but no remittance was received against the export.
“In these circular transactions, same goods were imported and then exported multiple times to siphon off the money abroad.
“Ashish Kakkar and Punit Kumar ultimately siphoned off ₹49.78 billion abroad, laundering the money obtained from cyber fraud using these circular transactions,” the ED said. (PTI)
