ED attaches ₹13.58-crore assets in Chinese national case

Enforcement Directorate attaches ₹13.58 crore assets in money laundering case involving Chinese national running illegal businesses in India.

The Enforcement Directorate has attached properties worth ₹13.58 crore in a money laundering case involving a Chinese national, who allegedly stayed in India illegally, and his associates.

Xue Fei, the Chinese national, and his accomplices had allegedly opened hotels and clubs in the National Capital Region for fellow Chinese citizens, particularly those who entered and stayed in the country illegally without valid documents.

The attached assets are in the form of bank balance, fixed deposits, immovable properties, and insurance policies beneficially owned by Ravi Natvarlal Thakkar and others, the agency said on Thursday.

The probe is based on a First Information Report (FIR) and the chargesheets filed by the Uttar Pradesh’s special task force under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code, the Foreigners Act and the Information Technology Act.

“Xue Fei along with Ravi Natvarlal Thakkar and others were controlling and running suspicious hotels and clubs in the NCR areas for Chinese nationals, especially those who entered and stayed in India illegally. They, in connivance with each other, opened multiple paper companies having puppet/dummy directors and were operating various instant loan apps like Rupee Plus, Lucky Wallet, Flash Paisa, Paisa Karo, Hi Paisa, Radha Money, etc. under the umbrella of such companies,” the agency said.

The accused used to get the personal data of borrowers and used it to blackmail and threaten them in the guise of loan recovery. Following the modus operandi, they cheated the people across the country of amounts running into crores of rupees and transferred the funds to a web of companies via circular transactions through bogus/paper/shell companies controlled by the “Chinese cartel”.