ED team attacked during raid at Delhi

An Enforcement Directorate (ED) team was attacked in Delhi on Thursday after it arrived at a farmhouse in the Bijwasan area as part of its investigation into cybercrimes related to the UAE-based Pyypl app, police officials said. An additional director of the central agency was injured in the incident.

According to police officials, the incident occurred early on Thursday when ED officials arrived at the farmhouse of a chartered accountant. The ED team was allegedly attacked by one Ashok Sharma and five others, including his family members and his servants. “The main accused fled and a search is on for him,” a police official said.

According to the ED, the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) and the Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-IND) traced the money trail in a range of cybercrimes like phishing scams, QR code cheating, part-time job scams etc to around 15,000 mule accounts. “The debit and credit cards of these accounts were then taken by the fraudsters and the money was transferred to top-up virtual accounts on UAE-based Pyypl payment aggregator. Then funds were used from Pyypl to buy crypto-currency. The entire network was being run by shady chartered accountants,” an ED official said. The ED’s High Intensity Unit is investigating several top chartered accountants as part of this case.