The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday filed a prosecution complaint in a Bengaluru court in a Chinese loan app case.
ED sources stated that the prosecution complaint will be accepted by the special Bengaluru court at a later date of hearing. The ED had, earlier, frozen ₹9.82 crore of the entities involved in Chinese loan apps scam in which they are accused of indulging in aggressive predatory lending.
At the time of taking action under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act last year, the ED had stated that various Chinese-controlled entities like Comein Network Technology Private Limited and others had entered into service agreements with various non banking financial companies and were also operating multiple suspicious loan apps such as Cashhome, Cashmart, Easyloan etc. They received funds from public on pretext of operating these apps, the agency had stated.
THe agency had carried out searches last year on six online payment gateways -- such as Razorpay, Paytm and Cashfree -- owing to suspicion that Chinese nationals were diverting money collected by offering loans through various merchant IDs linked to payment gateways and banks. These merchant IDs were front companies as ED inquiry revealed that they did not exist on the addresses declared to ministry of corporate affairs.