Kolkata: A fresh amount of Rs 32 crore has been seized from various bank accounts used by prime accused Amir Khan in the E-Nuggets multi-crore mobile gaming fraud scam, Kolkata Police said on Wednesday.
The fresh seizure has been made from 1,195 bank accounts that were hired by the prime accused against a commission for deposits of the scam proceeds.
City police sources said that on being tipped off by their informers, the police raided a flat at Saila Tower complex at Salt Lake in the northern outskirts of Kolkata. There from a particular office they came across many bank accounts with deposits worth Rs 32 crore.
With this fresh recovery, the total recovery by the Kolkata Police and Enforcement Directorate has increased to Rs 132.87 crore, out of which the recovery by ED had been Rs 36.95 crore.
The prime accused, Amir Khan, is currently in police custody and will be produced again at a lower court in Kolkata on October 21.
Meanwhile, the ED sleuths are waiting for the court to remand Khan to judicial custody so that they can make an application to the court to take Khan into their custody to question him on the money trail and the beneficiaries of the scam.
Kolkata Police arrested Khan on September 24 from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh. The city police also arrested five of his close associates. Another close associate of Khan, Subhojeet Srimani is absconding and the city police have issued a look out notice against him. Srimani is believed to have taken shelter in Dubai recently.
The ED initiated the investigation in the E-Nuggets scam with a cash recovery of Rs 17.32 crore on September 10 from the residence of Amir Khan’s father, Naser Khan at Shahi Astabal Lane in the Garden Reach area of Kolkata.
Amir Khan had launched a mobile gaming application named E-Nuggets, which was designed for the purpose of defrauding the public. During the initial period, the users were rewarded with commission and the balance in the wallet could be withdrawn in a hassle-free manner. This provided initial confidence to the users, who started investing bigger amounts for greater percentage of commission and a greater number of purchase orders.
After collecting handsome amounts from the public, all of a sudden withdrawal from the said app was stopped on one pretext or the other. Thereafter, all data, including profile information, was wiped out from the said app server.
—IANS