According to reports, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided Chinese-controlled lending applications and investment tokens, freezing cash worth Rs. 46.67 crore held in payment gateways such as Easebuzz, Razorpay, Cashfree, and Paytm. According to reports, the federal government has blocked accounts in accordance with anti-money laundering legislation. According to a report, searches were conducted on Wednesday at the accused's homes in Delhi, Mumbai, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, and Gaya. Around Rs. 33.36 crore was allegedly discovered using Easebuzz in Pune, while Rs. 8.21 crore was discovered with Razorpay in Bangalore.
According to a PTI report, the ED earlier this week raided the offices of online payment gateways such as Easebuzz, Razorpay, Cashfree, and Paytm as part of an ongoing probe into Chinese-controlled enterprises and investment tokens. The government agency seized money totaling Rs. 46.67 crore from various bank accounts and virtual accounts.
The raids were carried out in accordance with the terms of the 2002 Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). According to the article, the complaint was filed in October 2021 by the Kohima Police Department's cybercrime squad in Nagaland.
On Wednesday, searches were allegedly conducted at the accused's homes in Delhi, Mumbai, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, and Gaya. Sixteen banks and payment gateways in Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Bengaluru were searched in connection with an inquiry into an app-based token called HPZ and other companies, according to the newspaper, which cited an ED statement.
During the search, the ED allegedly obtained a number of damning papers. Funds were discovered in the virtual accounts of the organisations working with payment aggregators. A total of Rs. 33.36 crore was discovered with Easebuzz in Pune, while Razorpay in Bangalore was confiscated for Rs. 8.21 crore. The ED discovered Rs. 1.28 crore in Bangalore using Cashfree Payments and Rs. 1.11 crore in New Delhi with Paytm.
Paytm refuted the story, claiming that the ED has directed the business to freeze certain funds from particular merchant companies' MIDs. The corporation declared in a tweet that none of the cash frozen by the central agency belong to it or any of its group companies.
The reports were also denied by Easebuzz and Cashfree Payments. "We'd want to make it clear that none of the parties referenced in the ED's statement were part of our merchant base. The organisations referenced by authorities were simply the counterparties of the merchant who used our payment gateway, and this merchant had been proactively identified and prohibited by us long before the inquiry began, in accordance with our internal risk and compliance approach. We aim to fully cooperate with the investigating authorities since we are committed to ensuring that our company operations are in accordance with current legislation "In a statement, an Easebuzz spokeswoman stated.
"We continue to provide thorough assistance to the ED activities." On the day of the inquiry, we were able to give the relevant and sufficient information within a few hours. "Cashfree Payments' operations and onboarding processes are entirely compliant with existing rules," a Cashfree Payments spokeswoman told Gadgets 360.
