Taking forward investigations into the Chinese-controlled loan apps and investment tokens, the Enforcement Directorate has frozen Rs 46.67 crore worth funds kept in payment gateways Easebuzz, Razorpay, Cashfree and Paytm.
The action taken under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) came after the ED conducted searches against Chinese-controlled loan apps and investment tokens on September 14 at various locations, including in Delhi, Mumbai, Ghaziabad, Lucknow and Gaya.
In a statement, the ED said the investigations have covered 16 premises of banks and payment gateways in Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jodhpur and Bengaluru in respect of an investigation related to an app-based token named HPZ and related entities.
The ED had taken up investigations in the case on the basis of an FIR filed by the cyber crime unit of Kohima Police in Nagaland in October last year.
"Huge balances were found to be maintained in the virtual accounts of the involved entities with payment aggregators like Rs 33.36 crore was found with Easebuzz Private Limited, Pune, Rs 8.21 crore with Razorpay Software Private Limited, Bangalore, Rs 1.28 crore with Cashfree Payments India Private Limited, Bangalore and Rs 1.11 crore with Paytm Payments Services Limited, New Delhi," it said.
Paytm said in a statement, "as mentioned in our exchange filing, ED instructed us to freeze certain amount from MIDs of specific merchant entities and none of these funds belong to Paytm or our group companies."
EaseBuzz spokesperson said none of the parties mentioned in the ED’s statement belonged to their merchant base. "The mentioned entities by authorities were only the counterparties of the merchant, who was using our payment gateway and this merchant had been proactively identified and blocked by us much before the investigation had started, as per our internal risk and compliance process," the spokesperson said.
Also, Cashfree Payments’ spokesperson said, “We were able to provide the required and necessary information within a few hours on the day of enquiry. The operations and on-boarding processes of Cashfree Payments are fully compliant with existing regulations.”