On Thursday, the Enforcement Directorate provisionally attached immovable and movable properties worth Rs 97.79 crore belonging to businessman Raj Kundra under the provisions of PMLA, 2002 in its money laundering probe related to all the alleged Bitcoin-based Ponzi scam, involving a Singapore-based firm Variable Tech Pte Ltd.
The attached properties include a Residential flat situated in Juhu presently in the name of Kundra’s wife and Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty, a Residential Bungalow situated in Pune and Equity shares in the name of the businessman.
The money laundering case stems from FIRs of the Maharashtra Police against a company named Variable Tech Pte Ltd, Late Amit Bhardwaj, Ajay Bhardwaj, Vivek Bhardwaj, Simpy Bhardwaj, Mahender Bhardwaj and number of agents, where it was alleged that they had collected amounts of funds in the form of Bitcoins (worth Rs 6,000 crore in 2017) from public with the false promises of 10% per month return in the form of Bitcoins.
The promoters cheated the investors and have been concealing the ill-gotten Bitcoins in obscure online wallets, the ED alleged. Kundra is still in possession of 285 Bitcoins which are presently valued at more than Rs 150 crore, said the ED
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