A team from the Enforcement Directorate searched a house on Sambhunath Pandit Street in south Kolkata’s Bhowanipore on Tuesday morning in connection with a probe in a case involving cheating people through a mobile gaming application called e-Nuggets.
Officers of the agency said Amir Khan, the prime accused in the case, had allegedly used bank accounts of several persons from lower-income groups to transact a few hundred crores in cryptocurrency.
“We have reasons to believe that the e-wallet of the man whose house was searched on Tuesday was used for bitcoin transactions to cheat people. He possibly had a share in the money that had been duped out of victims,” said an ED officer.
The agency, however, did not say whether anything was seized from the house. “We have found that the father of this person (whose house was searched) works as a peon in a private company. The family has no clue about cryptocurrency,” said a senior ED official.
“Cryptocurrencies have been frozen under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.”
The Telegraph contacted the lawyer of the man whose house was searched on Tuesday.
“My client is unwell. He is hospitalised. His house is being searched. I will not be able to share more about this,” he said.
The lawyer said his client had raised some allegations against an ED officer and mailed a complaint letter to Kalighat police station.
ED had in September searched accused Amir Khan’s house in Garden Reach and allegedly seized Rs 17.3 crore. He was arrested in Ghaziabad, in Uttar Pradesh, weeks later.
Rumen Agarwal, an alleged aide of Amir, was arrested in October. Amir had allegedly sent Rs 4 crore to Rumen from his earnings from the mobile gaming app and the amount was transferred through cryptocurrency, ED officials said.