One 97 communication says the money seized by the ED does not belong to Paytm

5 Sep 2022 , 09:02 AM

The parent company of Paytm, One 97 Communication Ltd, informed the stock market exchanges on Sunday that none of the money the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) requested to be frozen belonged to Paytm or any of its group companies.

In connection with an investigation into the Chinese micro-loan app controversy, the ED investigated half a dozen offices in Bengaluru pertaining to online payment gateways like Razorpay, Paytm, and Cashfree.

The federal agency had stated on Saturday that the searches were carried out in accordance with the Prevention of Money Laundering Act’s (PMLA) regulations.

None of the merchant IDs requested to be frozen by the ED, according to the digital payments company, belonged to Paytm or any of its group companies.

Based on the 18 First Information Reports (FIRs) filed by the Bengaluru Cyber Crime Police Station against many organizations and people, the ED has opened an investigation.

The lawsuit deals with predatory lending apps that attracted customers with seemingly simple loans. Money has occasionally been deposited into customers’ accounts without specific loan applications. After that, the harassment increased and included threatening to send modified pictures to contacts if payments weren’t paid at usurious interest rates. These lending apps typically used payment gateways to route their lending and recovery transactions.

As a result of the searches, the ED claimed, according to ET, that it discovered “the said entities were generating proceeds of crime through various merchant IDs/accounts held with payment gateways/banks and they are also not operating from the addresses given on the MCA website/registered address and having fake addresses.”

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