Shimla: ED arrests 3 in Rs 500-crore cryptocurrency scam, mastermind absconding
The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) has arrested Milan Garg, Sukhdev Thakur, and Abhishek Sharma under Section 19(1) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, in connection with the investigation of a cryptocurrency scam.
The arrests were made by the Shimla sub-zonal office of ED on Friday, which had initiated investigation on the basis of FIRs registered against Subhash Sharma and other key conspirators in Himachal and Punjab. The mastermind of the cryptocurrency scam Subhash Sharma is absconding. Mountain& Ski Resorts
The three accused have been arrested under Section 19(1) of the PML Act, 2002 and the court granted 12 days’ custody to the ED for further investigation. Earlier, ED arrested Hem Raj and Masoom Juneja for the offence of money laundering.
The accused operated multiple fictitious investment platforms, including Korvio, DGT, Hypenext and A-Global, to defraud the public by luring investors with promises of high and assured returns.
Investigation by the law enforcement agencies and under the PMLA has revealed that in 2018, Subhash Sharma, in connivance with co-accused including Hem Raj, Milan Garg, Sukhdev Thakur, Abhishek Sharma, and others, launched a cryptocurrency-based multi-level marketing (MLM) scheme through an online platform designed to facilitate controlled operations and large-scale investor enrolment.
The platform was subsequently migrated to foreign servers hosted on Digital Ocean and operated through domains such as korvio.io and voscrow.com.
The accused made false promises of assured high returns, manipulating token values and introducing new tokens to sustain a Ponzi structure, wherein funds collected from new investors were used to pay returns to earlier investors. The accused earned significant commissions from the scheme and acquired beneficial interests in immovable properties derived from the proceeds of crime.
To conceal the fraudulent activities, digital records and domain data were deleted but recovered digital evidence has revealed that more than 2.48 lakh users became victims of the fraud, with total transactions exceeding USD 219 million, resulting in an estimated loss of approximately Rs 500 Crore to innocent investors.
