Razorpay Says Funds Not Frozen by ED, Firm Cooperating With Agency

Payments answer supplier Razorpay, which was raided by the Enforcement Directorate just lately, in an announcement mentioned that it has cooperated with the company and its funds haven’t been frozen. “This recent visit by the ED is part of the ongoing investigation against a few suspicious entities who conducted illegal business through multiple payment gateways/banks,” the corporate mentioned in an announcement on Friday.

“We proactively blocked all those suspicious entities and funds associated with them about 1.5 years ago, and have shared their details with the ED multiple times,” a Razorpay spokesperson mentioned.

“All our operations and onboarding processes adhere to the highest standards of governance and regulatory guidelines. No funds of Razorpay were frozen,” the spokesperson mentioned.

The fintech firm acknowledged that being a regulated monetary establishment it routinely cooperates with regulation enforcement businesses and supply obligatory service provider data to help within the investigation course of.

The Enforcement Directorate had in mid-September mentioned it has detected and frozen Rs. 46.67 crore stored in numerous financial institution accounts and digital accounts of Razorpay, and three others — Easebuzz, Cashfree and Paytm — after raids in reference to a Chinese mortgage app case.

The company had then mentioned a complete of Rs. 33.36 crore was discovered with Easebuzz Private Limited, Pune, Rs. 8.21 crore with Razorpay Software Private Limited, Bangalore, Rs. 1.28 crore with Cashfree Payments India Private Limited, Bangalore and Rs. 1.11 crore with Paytm Payments Services Limited, New Delhi.

The ED carried out search operations beneath the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 at six enterprise and residential premises in Delhi, Ghaziabad, Mumbai, Lucknow, Gaya and 16 different premises of banks and cost gateways branches and workplaces in Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jodhpur and Bangalore in respect of an investigation associated to the app-based token named HPZ and associated entities.

The company initiated a cash laundering investigation on the idea of an FIR registered on October 8, 2021, filed beneath numerous sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) by Cyber Crime Police Station, Kohima, Nagaland.

The HPZ Token was an App-Based Token which promised customers of serious good points in opposition to funding by investing in mining machines for Bitcoin and different cryptocurrencies, mentioned the ED.

“The modus-operandi of the fraudsters was to first lure the victims to invest in the company on the pretext of doubling their investment through the app HPZ Token,” the company had mentioned then.