An FIR was registered in February 2021 by the Kolkata Police against one Aamir Khan and others based on the allegation made by Federal Bank authorities. Based on that, the ED opened a money laundering probe into the company. The agency reported in September that it had frozen bitcoins worth ₹12.83 crore in an investigation against Khan and others related to the mobile gaming application, E-nuggets.
ED has carried out search operation on Wallet/User ID in Binance Crypto Exchange leading to freezing of 150.22 Bitcoins equivalent to Rs 22.82 Crore under PMLA, 2002, in respect to an investigation being conducted relating to the Mobile Gamming Application, namely E-nuggets.
— ED (@dir_ed) November 11, 2022
The Enforcement Directorate accused a person named Aamir Khan of launching the E-nuggets app for defrauding the public. The agency alleged that Khan had collected a huge amount of money from the public through the app and then stopped withdrawal of the sum on some pretext.
“Thereafter, all data including profile information [of users] was wiped off from the said app servers,” the agency said.
It also said that more than 300 accounts were used to launder the money as well as to buy cryptocurrencies.
Earlier, the agency had seized Rs 17.32 crore from Khan’s house and also frozen 85.91870554 Bitcoins amounting to about Rs 13.56 crore. In addition to this, Rs 5.47 crore found in Khan and his accomplice’s bank account as well as cryptocurrncy of about Rs 47.64 lakhs in cryptocurrency exchange firm WazirX had also been frozen.
The Enforcement Directorate had also seized and frozen Rs 1.65 crore and 44.5 Bitcoins, which was then valued at Rs 7.12 crore, found at the house of a person named Romen Agarwal. According to the agency, Agarwal used to transfer ill-gotten amounts of money within and outside the country for criminals.
He has been arrested and is in judicial custody.
