ED discovers money trail of betting scam to China

HYDERABAD: The ED has begun a probe into Chinese companies resorting to fraudulent online betting, cheating people in India and transferring the proceeds of the crime to China through multi-layered and technical transactions involving cryptocurrency. The firms allegedly laundered Rs 1,100 crore from just two accounts.

After a Chinese national Yan Hao was arrested, the ED made him the prime accused in the case and named Delhi-based Jagadamba Trading Company and two Gurgaon-based companies — Dokypay Technology and Linkyun Technology — along with their directors and associates as accused in its enforcement case information report (ECIR).

Naisar Sailesh Kothari, a cryptocurrency trader from Bhavnagar in Gujarat, was added as an accused later. ED’s probe was an offshoot of Hyderabad cybercrime police investigation that started with a complaint in July 2020 by S Praveen Kumar of Sitaphalmandi in Secunderabad who said he was cheated of Rs 97,000 through the gaming website htpps.baronclubs.com. He said he was made part of a 5,000-member Telegram app group before being cheated.


In the ECIR, the ED said the accused created multiple websites that look like e-commerce platforms. “If any player wants to indulge in betting and gambling, he has to come through a referral code provided by the Telegram groups. All those who add new members into these gaming groups will be paid incentives. These groups offer predictions to the gamblers and lure them into investing in betting and dupe them. Most of the websites will remain inactive and the admins of these Telegram groups would indicate to their members where to gamble and which site is active,” the ED said.

“This is done to avoid any legal tussles. The name of the game where members play and place their bets is called Colour Prediction. Dokypay and Linkyun collect money from the members through Paytm and CashFree payment gateways,” ED added. The domain name servers of these companies are China-based and data hosting servers are cloud-based in the US but are operated from China. “All these entities are controlled by China-based Beijing T Power Company,” the ED said.