New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to grant anticipatory bail to a chartered accountant in a money laundering investigation linked to the case $640 Crore Online Fraud Cases.
A bench of Justices MM Sundresh and Augustine George Masih upheld the Delhi High Court order denying bail to Bhaskar Yadav and ordered him to surrender within 10 days.
The Supreme Court on February 2 rejected anticipatory bail applications filed by Yadav and Ashok Kumar Sharma.
In the 22-page ruling, the Supreme Court said there was a “complex network of money laundering” and that the need expressed by the Enforcement Directorate to interrogate the detained accused was not unreasonable.
“The accused/applicants, being consummate professionals, have crafted laundering of proceeds of crime across multiple layers and to unravel this, I find substance in the submission of the learned counsel to the DoE that custodial interrogation is much required,” the HC said.
She added: “It is not just a case of dealing in cryptocurrencies, which in itself is not a crime in this country and the responsibility of the accused persons is limited to paying taxes on cryptocurrency transactions. The current cases show a vast complex network of movement of money, which was fraudulently extracted from the pockets of gullible investors, who appear to belong primarily to the middle class.”
The Supreme Court has stated that individual freedom is sacred, but it cannot ignore the requirement of meaningful questioning and investigation in the larger interest of the country’s economy.
She noted that there were new complaints by the accused for allegedly assaulting investigating officers, bribing local police to settle complaints of cyber fraud, and destroying electronic evidence.
The money laundering investigation stems from two FIRs lodged by the Economic Offenses Wing of Delhi Police which were registered to investigate charges of internet fraud amounting to Rs. $The CEO had earlier said in a statement that Rs 640 crore was generated through betting, gambling, part-time jobs and phishing scams.
According to the agency, gullible people were robbed of their money by storing the fraudulent funds through more than 5,000 Indian bank accounts and later uploading them to PYYPL, a UAE-based payment platform.
She added that a portion of the cyber fraud funds were withdrawn in cash in Dubai through debit and credit cards issued by various Indian banks.
According to the investigating agency, the alleged fraud was carried out by a group of CAs, company secretaries and cryptocurrency traders who worked in tandem to launder the proceeds of crime.
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