The Enforcement Directorate has provisionally attached properties, both immovable and movable, worth Rs. 97.79 crore belonging to Shilpa Shetty and her husband, Raj Kundra. The attachment has been made under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in the bitcoin investment fraud case.
The attached properties include the Kundras’ residential flat at Juhu in Bombay, a residential bungalow in Pune and equity shares. While the Bombay flat is in Shilpa Shetty’s name, the shares are in the name of Raj Kundra.
The money laundering case in question was filed against Kundra, based on multiple FIRs registered by the Maharashtra police and the Delhi police against Variable Tech Pvt. Ltd., (late) Amit Bhardwaj, Ajay Bhardwaj, Vivek Bhardwaj, Simpy Bhardwaj, Mahender Bhardwaj, and several multiple-level marketing (MLM) agents. The FIRs alleged that the accused had collected huge amounts of money in the form of bitcoins (worth Rs. 6,600 crore in 2017) from people with false promises of a 10% per month return in the form of bitcoins. But the promoters allegedly cheated the investors and have been concealing the ill-gotten bitcoins in obscure online wallets, the ED stated in a statement.
The ED’s investigation into the matter has revealed that Kundra received 285 bitcoins from Amit Bhardwaj, the mastermind and promoter of the Gain Bitcoin Ponzi Scam, for setting up a bitcoin mining farm in Ukraine. These bitcoins were sourced out of proceeds of crime collected by Amit Bhardwaj from gullible investors. According to the ED, since the deal didn’t materialise, Kundra is still in possession of the 285 bitcoins which are presently valued at more than Rs. 150 crore. Multiple search operations were carried out earlier in this case and Simpy Bhardwaj, Nitin Gaur and Nikhil Mahajan were arrested last year. They are all in judicial custody while the main accused, Ajay Bhardwaj and Mahender Bhardwaj, are still wanted by law enforcement agencies.
This is the second attachment in the case. Earlier, the ED had attached properties worth Rs. 69 crore in the case. The ED has already filed Prosecution Complaints (chargesheet) against the arrested accused.
Kundra had spent two months in Bombay’s Arthur Road jail in 2021 in connection with a pornography case. He was granted bail in September 2021 by a metropolitan magistrate’s court in Bombay.