NEW DELHI, Aug 11: The Enforcement Directorate froze assets worth Rs 370 crore of crypto currency exchange Vault on Thursday. This comes just days after the financial probe agency froze assets of crypto currency exchange WazirX in connection with a money laundering probe.
The global crypto exchange Binance had said on Monday that it was closing off-chain fund transfers with WazirX which is facing probe for outward remittance of crypto assets worth Rs 2,790 crore to unknown wallets.
The ED is conducting a money laundering investigation against a number of Indian Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) companies and their fintech partners for predatory lending practices in violation of the RBI guidelines and by using tele-callers who misuse personal data and use abusive language to extort high interest rates from the loan takers.
Meanwhile, the Income Tax department conducted raids on the premises of a real estate developer, who is also a steel and cloth merchant, in Jalna and Aurangabad cities in Maharashtra and seized illegal property worth over Rs 390 crore, including Rs 58 crore unaccounted cash and 32 kg gold.
A department spokesman said on Thursday that the raid on the industrialist in Jalna was going on from August 1 and continued through August 8. The department took 13 hours to count the seized cash. As many as 260 officers and employees from across the state were involved in the proceedings. All these officers were divided into five teams to conduct the raids, the spokesman said.
(Manas Dasgupta)