MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday carried out searches in the city as part of its money-laundering probe against TP Global FX,
MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday carried out searches in the city as part of its money-laundering probe against TP Global FX, which is accused of conducting forex trading without authorization, and seized a total of cash and forex worth around ₹61.5 lakh.
The ED’s probe has uncovered a “significant illegal forex trading racket” allegedly operated by TP Global FX. During the search operation, cash of ₹34.5 lakh and various foreign currencies equivalent to ₹27 lakh were seized by the ED. The probe revealed that TP Global FX was allegedly not registered/authorised for forex trading by the RBI, which had put it on its Alert List, the sources said. “The RBI had cautioned the public against engaging with unregistered trading platforms on September 7, 2022,” a source said.
ED had initiated its investigation based on a case registered by the Kolkata police against TM Traders and KK Traders. The investigation revealed that an allegedly “sophisticated deception” was carried out by a few accused individuals by using multiple dummy companies to entrap investors into a fraudulent scheme, promising high returns on forex-trading investments through TP Global FX.
“Further, the directors and promoters of IXGlobal, including Viraj Patil, actively promoted TP Global FX as their preferred brokers and the members and users of IXGlobal employed TP Global FX brokerage services for their forex trading activities,” an ED source said.
The investors’ funds were diverted to accumulate personal assets for the accused through complex methods including funnelling money through dummy accounts and engaging the services of Full-Fledged Money Changers, some of which had their licenses revoked by the RBI, the source said.
ED had earlier in the case arrested Howrah-based businessman Shailesh Pandey, Prasenjit Das and Patil, and seized/frozen/attached assets worth ₹263 crore, including cash, gold, real estate assets, hospitality establishments, vehicles, cryptocurrencies and bank balances. The ED submitted two chargesheets against the arrested accused persons.
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