The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has taken major action in the much talked about cryptocurrency scam. ED’s Shimla sub-zonal office has arrested Milan Garg, Sukhdev Thakur and Abhishek Sharma in this case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The court has sent all three accused to ED custody for 12 days. ED’s investigation was started on the basis of FIRs registered in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab. Investigation revealed that the main accused Subhash Sharma and his associates lured people with high and fixed profits in a short time by creating fake online investment platforms.
These fake investment platforms include Korvio, DGT, Hypenext and A-Global. According to the investigation, in the year 2018, the accused started a cryptocurrency based multi-level marketing (MLM) scheme and later this platform was shifted to foreign servers and was operated through domains like korvio.io and voscrow.com.
DCP (Crime and Traffic) Amarinder Singh said that during interrogation, the accused gave information about fake bank accounts, SIM cards, digital wallets, money transactions and other alleged associates. He further said that there is a possibility of more arrests in this case.
The scheme continued like a Ponzi scheme
ED said that false promises were made to people to invest in Korvio Coin (KRO). Old investors were paid with the money coming from new investors, due to which the entire scheme continued like a Ponzi scheme. When the matter started coming to light, attempts were also made to erase digital records and data related to the domain.
More than 2.48 lakh people became victims
Investigation has revealed that more than 2.48 lakh people became victims of this scam. More than US$219 million were transacted on the platform and investors suffered a loss of around Rs 500 crore. According to ED, Milan Garg was the technical mastermind of this entire network. He created fake platforms, controlled crypto wallets, shifted investors from one platform to another and monitored money transactions.
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