The ED on Friday stated it has frozen contemporary deposits value Rs. 78 crore following raids on the premises of fee gateway Razorpay and a few banks as a part of an ongoing cash laundering probe towards the alleged unlawful operations of mortgage apps “controlled” by Chinese nationals.

The searches had been carried out at 5 premises in Bengaluru on October 19, the Enforcement Directorate stated.

The cash laundering case stems from 18 FIRs filed by the cyber crime police station of Bengaluru police towards quite a few entities/individuals for his or her involvement in extortion and harassment of the general public who had availed small quantities of loans by the cellular apps being run by them.

“These entities are controlled/operated by Chinese nationals. The modus operandi of these entities is to use forged documents of Indians and make them dummy directors and generate proceeds of crime.”

“It has come to notice that the said entities were doing their suspected/illegal business through various merchant IDs/accounts held with payment gateways and banks,” the ED said.

These entities had been producing “proceeds of crime” by varied service provider IDs/accounts held with fee gateways and banks they usually have submitted pretend addresses in KYC paperwork.

“An amount of Rs. 78 crore has been seized in merchant IDs (held in payment gateways) and bank accounts of these Chinese persons-controlled entities. The total seizure in the case now stands at Rs. 95 crore,” the ED stated.

The company had earlier seized deposits value Rs. 17 crore within the case.

It stated contemporary searches had been carried out on the premises of Razorpay and compliance workplaces of a few of the banks.

These fee gateway companies have been within the ED’s crosshairs since 2020, quickly after the COVID-19 outbreak began within the nation.

The ED initiated a probe below the felony sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after quite a few situations of gullible debtors ending their lives got here to the fore from varied states, with the police stating they had been being coerced and harassed by these mortgage app (software) corporations by publicising their private particulars obtainable of their telephones and utilizing high-handed strategies to threaten them.

It was alleged that the businesses sourced all private knowledge of the loan-takers on the time of downloading these apps on their telephones, at the same time as their rates of interest had been “usurious”.

The ED had stated the alleged proceeds of crime on this case had been routed by these fee gateways.