The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has taken stringent measures by freezing 13 accounts and establishing direct links to the Dubai-based operator Tibrewala.
This action underscores heightened scrutiny and efforts to address financial irregularities associated with the said operator.
According to the ED, Tibrewala has been laundering the proceeds from the betting operations by investing the money in shares of companies listed on the BSE and NSE.
The Enforcement Directorate has frozen 13 accounts, most of them associated with Dubai-based hawala operator Hari Shankar Tibrewala, as part of its investigations into the Mahadev Online Book illegal betting case.
MOB betting app is an umbrella syndicate arranging online platforms for enabling illegal betting websites and laundering of money through a layered web of benami bank accounts.
The accounts of the 13 entities that have been frozen are:
- Ability Games Pvt Ltd
- Ability Smartech Pvt Ltd
- Ability Ventures Pvt Ltd
- Brilliant Investment Consultants Pvt Ltd
- Dicovery Buildcon Pvt Ltd
- Forest Vincom Pvt Ltd
- Sawarnbhumi Vanijya Pvt Ltd
- Dream Achievers Consultancy
- Ecotek General Trading LLC
- Zenith Multi Trading DMCC
- Plus Commodities DMCC
- Caterfield Commodities DMCC
- JE Impex DMCC
The action was taken last week and the development was confirmed by the ED.
Of these, Ecotek General, Zenith, Plus Commodities, Caterfield Commodities and JE Impex are foreign investor portfolio (FPI) structures. In all, the value of shares held by these FPI structures is a little over Rs 600 crore, according to the ED.
Zenith Multi Trading shares in Balu Forge, Pritika Auto, Servo Tech Engineering, Gensol among others.
Ecotek held shares in Toyam Sports, OK Play, Algoquant Fintech, Balu Forge, Trescon Ltd and Salasar Techno Engineering as of December 31, 2023.
Caterfield held shares of Hazoor Multi Projects and Balu Forge as on December 31, 2023.
Sawarnbhumi Vanijya held shares in LKP Finance, North Eastern Carrying Corporation, Integra Essentia, Vikas Ecotech, Tiger Logistics.
In some of the abovementioned companies, Tibrewala-linked firms hold less than 1 percent of the equity.
The ED on Friday arrested Suraj Chokhani, a key aide of Tibrewala.
“Hari Shankar Tibrewal used Suraj Chokhani to launder and hide proceeds of crime under- the guise of share investment for Indian companies,” the release said.
Suraj Chokhani is one of the directors of Dream Achiever Consultancy Service. In January this year, Dream Achiever acquired a 36.84 percent stake in Delhi-based arbitrage firm BLB Limited. Dream Achiever has also made an open offer for another 26 percent in BLB at Rs 22.60 per share.
