Two chartered accountants (CAs) and a cryptocurrency trader have been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) following a money laundering probe in a cyber fraud case of ₹640 crore.

Ajay Yadav and Vipin Yadav, the two CAs, and cryptocurrency trader Jitendra Kaswan were arrested during the searches carried out at 13 premises from November 28 to November 30 at Delhi, Jodhpur, Jhunjhunu, Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata, the ED said.

During the search operations, unexplained cash amounting to ₹47 lakh, various incriminating documents, cheque books, ATM cards, PAN Cards, digital signatures and trust wallet secret phrases were recovered and seized by the sleuths.

Other than that, crypto (USDT) currency worth ₹1.36 crore too has been seized from private wallet, and various bank accounts have been frozen by the ED.

The local police have arrested Radhe Shyam Sharma on charges of “attacking and restricting with force” an ED team which had landed to search his CA brother Ashok Kumar Sharma’s farmhouse in the Bijwasan area of southwest Delhi on November 28 to take the investigation in the case forward.

The ED began the money laundering probe after taking up two FIRs filed by the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police to investigate charges of cyber fraud to the tune of ₹640 crore.

The scam money was generated through betting, gambling, part-time jobs and phishing scams, the agency said in a statement.

The public money was “siphoned off” by layering cheated funds through more than 5,000 “mule” Indian bank accounts which were subsequently uploaded on PYYPL, a UAE-based payment platform, the ED alleged.

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