The Ahmedabad Zonal office of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Sunday said it conducted search operations at 10 locations in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad, Surat and other locations in Andhra Pradesh in a case involvng M/s Quality Fruit Traders and others, on May 23.
The searches were based on a case of “digital arrest” registered by the Cyber Crime Police Station, Ahmedabad City, against unknown persons under relevant sections of the IPC and the IT Act, for allegedly defrauding the complainant for Rs 1.15 crore.
The searches were conducted under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
ED said that during probe, it was revealed that the said amount of Rs 1.15 crore was subsequently transferred to bogus bank accounts maintained in the name of M/s Quality Fruit Traders and M/s Shivam Charitable Trust. The trail revealed that the money was immediately transferred out to multiple other bank accounts across India. Amounts of around Rs 5-10 lakh each were tranferred to these accounts through various modes such as RTGS, UPI & IMPS. Subsequently, either cash was withdrawn or the amounts were further transferred through IMPS to various parties.
The search operations resulted in the recovery and seizure of various allegedly “incriminating digital records”, substantial information about various Hawala operations and other documents, along with a seizure of around Rs 3 lakh in bank accounts. Further investigation is in progress.
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