The enforcement department officers who conducted a thorough search of the company and its related offices, which was involved in money fraud from many people including children through online mobile games, found that belonging to the company Rs. More than 68 crore bank deposits have been frozen.
The Enforcement Department said in a press release on Tuesday:
The raid was conducted at 3 offices belonging to a company called ‘Koda Money Exchange India Private Limited’ (CPIPL) under investigation related to money laundering case.
A case has been registered in various police stations against this company for engaging in money fraud through mobile games like ‘Karena Free Fi, Teen Patti Gold, Call of Duty’. The company collects money from the players on the basis that the participants in this game can buy octal (digital) tokens by paying them to improve their playing skills.
Also, the company sends a ‘pop-up’ notification link to the game participant once they have made a successful payment through the payment process designed by the company. This allows CODA to automatically withdraw money owed by players from their bank accounts without their consent.
As these games are mostly played by children, when children access the Internet without understanding such technical details sent on behalf of the company, the company gets permission to take money.
Coda then remits the money fraudulently collected under the guise of selling ‘financial operations’ to its parent company in Singapore. Through these games Coda has so far collected Rs. 2,850 crore, after tax expenses and nominal profit, the remaining Rs. 2,265 crore was sent to the parent company in Singapore, the investigation revealed.
In addition, the parent company in Singapore has full control over the sale of ‘cash operations’, which the company refers to as cash collection. The investigation also revealed that there was no control over CBIPL in India.
Therefore, on the charge of fraudulently withdrawing money from the bank accounts of customers who did not fully understand the details, all the bank accounts of CBIPL company, business unique identification number for money transaction and bank fixed deposit held against the company of Rs. 68.53 crore has been frozen under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the Enforcement Directorate said.