New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is set to summon the promoters of mobility firm Gensol Engineering and online travel platform EaseMyTrip as part of its money laundering investigation into the Mahadev Online Book Betting App, ThePrint has learnt.
Sources familiar with the matter said these two companies are among a list of firms allegedly used by the promoters of the Mahadev app to channel proceeds of crime—amounting to hundreds of crores—back into India.
This development comes nearly a week after the federal investigation agency conducted raids at more than 50 locations across the country, including premises linked to the promoters of EaseMyTrip and Gensol Engineering.
“A long list of companies, including EaseMyTrip and Gensol, were utilised to funnel proceeds of crime by Hari Shankar Tibrewal, a hawala operator and associate of the Mahadev Online Book promoters,” said a source familiar with the case. “Promoters of these companies were approached to provide funding disguised as Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI), through which illegal practices such as share price rigging were also carried out.”
An EaseMyTrip spokesperson told ThePrint that no incriminating documents or digital records were found during searches conducted on 16 April.
“The premise was searched, and no incriminating documents and digital records were found in the premises. No seizure was made from the premises,” the spokesperson said.
ThePrint reached out to Gensol Engineering via email for a response to the allegations. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
The ED’s investigation has so far allegedly found that Tibrewal—who himself operates a betting website named Sky Exchange—was partnering with Mahadev Online Book’s promoters and investing betting proceeds into the Indian financial market through the FPI route.
On Monday, the agency said that the raids and seizures conducted last week had uncovered the role of “promoters of such listed entities” in devising methods to bring proceeds from betting operations into their firms. These methods allegedly included preferential allotment of shares, sale of promoter or promoter-controlled shares, and other legal channels.
“During the searches, evidence was recovered suggesting that the promoters of these companies collaborated or colluded with the accused individuals to manipulate their company’s share prices using ‘tainted money’,” an agency spokesperson said in a statement issued Monday. “This was done to artificially boost the firms’ valuations with the assistance of a network of agents and intermediaries, some of whom—such as stockbrokers—were also raided.”
Another source said the agency has so far frozen around 10 lakh shares of Gensol—five lakh during last week’s searches and an equal number during similar operations in December last year.
This latest development comes at a time when Gensol Engineering’s promoters, Anmol and Puneet Singh Jaggi, are already under scrutiny for allegedly misappropriating investors’ funds into the company. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) last Tuesday barred the Jaggi brothers from holding director or key managerial roles in Gensol.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)
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