The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached movable and immovable properties worth Rs 97.79 crore of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty and her businessman husband Ripusudan Kundra alias Raj Kundra in a money laundering case linked to a crypto assets ponzi scheme. These properties include a residential flat in Juhu in the name of Shilpa Shetty, a residential bungalow in Pune and equity shares in the name of Raj Kundra. Advocate Prashant Patil, appearing for the couple, said there was no prima facie case against their clients and they would cooperate with the authorities.
The ED initiated the probe on the basis of multiple FIRs registered by the Maharashtra Police and the Delhi Police. Police in both the states had registered FIRs against Variable Tech Pvt Ltd, late Amit Bhardwaj, Ajay Bhardwaj, Vivek Bhardwaj, Simpi Bhardwaj, Mahendra Bhardwaj and several multi-level marketing agents.
It is alleged that these people had collected huge amounts of money in the form of bitcoins (worth Rs 6,600 crore in 2017) from the public with the false promise of 10 per cent returns per month in the form of bitcoins. The collected bitcoins were to be used for bitcoin mining and the investors were to get huge returns in the crypto assets. But the promoters cheated the investors and are hiding the ill-gotten bitcoins in an online wallet, the ED said in a statement on Thursday. The investigation also revealed that Raj Kundra received 285 bitcoins from Amit Bhardwaj, the mastermind and promoter of the Gain Bitcoin Ponzi scam, to set up a bitcoin mining farm in Ukraine. According to the ED, the said bitcoins were obtained from the proceeds of crime collected by Amit Bhardwaj from gullible investors.
