The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday attached assets worth Rs 98 crore of actor Shilpa Shetty and her husband Raj Kundra in the bitcoin ponzi scam case. The attached assets include the actor’s bungalow in Juhu
The ED in a statement said it has attached assets worth Rs 98 crore, including a bungalow in Pune and equity shares, of the couple as part of a money laundering investigation pertaining to cheating of investor funds through the use of bitcoins.
“The attached properties include a residential flat in Juhu (Mumbai) presently in the name of Shetty and a residential bungalow in Pune and equity shares in the name of Kundra,” the federal agency said in a statement. A provisional attachment order has been issued under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to attach these properties worth Rs 97.79 crore, it said.
“ED, Mumbai has provisionally attached immovable and movable properties worth Rs 97.79 crore belonging to Ripu Sudan Kundra aka Raj Kundra under the provisions of PMLA, 2002. The attached properties include a residential flat situated in Juhu presently in the name of Smt. Shilpa Shetty, residential bungalow situated in Pune and equity shares in the name of Raj Kundra,” the central agency tweeted.
It 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 gullible public with the false promises of 10 percent per month return in the form of Bitcoins.
The collected Bitcoins were supposed to be utilised for Bitcoin mining and investors were supposed to get huge returns in crypto assets. But the promoters cheated the investors and have been concealing the ill gotten Bitcoins in obscure online wallets.
ED investigation revealed that Raj Kundra received 285 Bitcoins from the mastermind and promoter of Gain Bitcoin Ponzi scam Amit Bhardwaj for setting up a Bitcoin mining farm in Ukraine.
The said Bitcoins were sourced out of proceeds of crime collected by Amit Bhardwaj from gullible investors. Since the deal didn’t materialise, Kundra is still in possession and enjoyment of 285 Bitcoins which are presently valued at more than Rs 150 crore.