ED seizes Rs 170-cr worth bank deposits in probe against 'fraud' forex trading platform

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday said it has frozen bank deposits worth Rs 170 crore following recent searches against promoters of an alleged fraudulent forex trading and deposit scheme.

The federal agency said in a statement that raids were launched on February 11 at various premises in Delhi, Noida and Shamli in Uttar Pradesh and Rohtak in Haryana as part of a probe against QFX Trade Ltd. and its directors named Rajendra Sood, Vineet Kumar and Santosh Kumar apart from one of the "mastermind" Nawab Ali alias Lavish Chaudhary.

The money laundering probe stems from multiple FIRs filed by the Himachal Pradesh Police against QFX company that is alleged to have cheated many investors through a "fraud" forex trading scheme.

QFX company and its directors were running an "unregulated" deposit scheme, promising high returns on investments to the investors, the ED alleged.

The agents of QFX group of companies ran a MLM (multi-level marketing) scheme under the name of QFX investment plan and created websites, apps and social media ads etc. to attract investors promising higher rate of return in the name of forex trading, as per the agency.

After the police FIRs were filed, the ED found, the name of the QFX scheme was changed to YFX (Yorker Fx) with same modus operandi "duping innocent investors by luring high rate of returns under the guise of forex trading."

"In addition to QFX more fraudulent investment schemes are being run and controlled by Nawab Ali alias Lavish Chaudhary such as BotBro, TLC Coin, Yorker FX projecting them as forex trading apps/websites," it said.

The ED found various events were organised in India and Dubai to lure more customers.

Probe found that multiple bank accounts of NPay Box Private Limited, Capter Money Solutions Private Limited and Tiger Digital Services Private Limited are being used for "collection of funds" from investors.

The agency claimed these were "shell" or dummy companies which were being "used" by the masterminds of QFX/YFX scheme for receiving deposits from public for investment in forex trading.

Funds worth Rs 170 crore kept in about 30 bank accounts have been frozen as the directors of the company could not explain the source of funds, the ED said.

Cash of about Rs 90 lakh was separately seized following searches against an agent of QFX/YFX, it said.