NEW DELHI, Jul 9: Fixed deposits and shares worth more than Rs 284 crore of a Haryana-based company have been frozen under the anti-money laundering law in a case linked to alleged duping of people through illegal online gambling and betting activities, the Enforcement Directorate said on Wednesday.
The federal agency in a statement said it conducted searches for two days starting Tuesday at four premises in Gurugram and Jind in Haryana of the firm named Probo Media Technologies Pvt. Ltd. and its promoters Sachin Subhaschandra Gupta and Ashish Garg.
The company operated a mobile app and website under the name ‘Probo’.
The money laundering case stems from multiple police FIRs registered against the company and its promoters in Gurugram and Palwal in Haryana and Agra in Uttar Pradesh.
The ED said the complainants told the police that they were “cheated” and “dishonestly” presented a scheme of earning money through simple “yes or no” questions while the scheme in reality promotes “gambling” by luring players to invest more in the hope of earning higher returns.
The company or its promoters could not be contacted for a comment on the ED charges.
Probe found that the app/website “defrauds” its users by initially promoting a deceptive image of a legitimate skill-based platform, only to ultimately “exploit” them through a betting mechanism where success is governed entirely by chance and not by the user’s abilities or insights.
The company, according to the agency, called its platform ‘opinion trading’ and that knowledge/skill is required to play the game.
“However, analysis of games shows that all the games can be answered with a ‘Yes or No’ and hence, there are only two possible outcomes which makes it indistinguishable from gambling/ betting resulting in loss of hard earned money of the users,” said the ED.
The agency claimed that the app/website does not have a mechanism to prevent minors from registering as users, there is absence of proper due diligence (KYC), and it induces new users through “misleading” advertisements and promoting opinion trading related to election results.
The company received Rs 134.84 crore against issue of ‘preference shares’ from foreign entities based in Mauritius, Cayman Islands and others, the ED said.
“The searches resulted in seizure of incriminating documents and digital data. Investment in FDs and shares amounting to Rs 284.5 crore and three bank lockers have been frozen during the searches,” it added. (PTI)
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