Shilpa Shetty and her businessman husband Raj Kundra have yet again mired themselves in a controversy. A while back, it has been reported that Enforcement Directorate (ED) has seized the property of Raj Kundra and Shilpa Shetty’s Juhu flat. The case pertains to cheating of investor funds through use of Bitcoins.
The Mumbai Zonal Office has tentatively attached immovable and movable properties worth Rs. 97.79 crore belonging to Ripu Sudan Kundra aka Raj Kundra under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
The news was confirmed by news agency ANI on their X (formerly Twitter) quoting ED has mentioned attaching properties including a residential flat situated in Juhu presently in the name of Shilpa Shetty, Residential Bungalow situated in Pune and Equity shares in the name of Raj Kundra.
According to a report published in India TV News, ED began investigation on the basis of multiple FIRs registered by Maharashtra Police and Delhi Police against M/s Variable Tech Pte Ltd, late Amit Bhardwaj, Ajay Bhardwaj, Vivek Bhardwaj, Simpy Bhardwaj, Mahender Bhardwaj and number of MLM agents, where it has been alleged that they had collected huge amounts of funds in the form of Bitcoins (worth Rs 6,600 crore in 2017 itself) from the innocent public with the false promises of 10 percent per month return in the form of Bitcoins.
The collected Bitcoins were supposed to be used for Bitcoin mining and investors were supposed to get huge returns in crypto assets. However, the promoters cheated the investors and have been concealing the illegal acquired bitcoins in ambiguous online wallets.
Further ED investigation discovered the name of Raj Kundra who was said to be receiving 285 Bitcoins from the master mind and promoter of Gain Bitcoin Ponzi scam Amit Bhardwaj for setting up Bitcoin mining farm in Ukraine. The said Bitcoins were procured during proceeds of crime collected by Amit Bhardwaj from the investors.
Nevertheless, the deal didn’t materialize and Raj Kundra still owns 285 Bitcoins which are presently valued at whopping more than Rs 150 crore.
As a matter of fact, earlier three persons namely Simpy Bhardwaj and Nitin Gaur were arrested on December 17 and December 29 respectively last year and Nikhil Mahajan on January 1. The trio is currently in judicial custody.
The main accused Ajay Bhardwaj and Mahendra Bhardwaj are still fugitive.
