India’s ED Uncovers $90 Million Cryptocurrency Scam

India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED) has uncovered a global money laundering operation linked to the unlawful trading platform OctaFX.

ED confiscates $19 million in assets across multiple jurisdictions

The platform allegedly accrued ₹800 crore ($90 million) in illegal profits from its Indian operations in just nine months.

OctaFX, which is registered in Cyprus with promoters based in Russia, technical support from Georgia, operations managed from Dubai, and servers situated in Barcelona, is currently under ED investigation for networks converting criminal revenues into cryptocurrencies.

The multi-agency inquiry found that OctaFX, which trades in forex, commodities, and cryptocurrencies, exploited international payment gateways and crypto channels to launder funds obtained from investment frauds targeting Indian citizens.

Some transactions were obscured through the fictitious importation of services from Singapore to mask the origins of illicit funds.

According to the Times of India, the ED has seized assets valued at $19 million within India and abroad, including a yacht, a villa in Spain, $4 million in bank accounts, 39,000 USDT in crypto assets, land, and stock market holdings worth $9 million.

OctaFX is not the sole focus of the ED’s investigation; other platforms under examination include Power Bank (by the Bengaluru zonal unit), Angel One, TM Traders, Vivan Li (from Kolkata), and Zara FX (from Kochi).

The ED’s cases are based on FIRs lodged by police in various Indian cities.

The investigation also revealed that cyber frauds included companies like Birfa IT acting as intermediaries, assisting in large transfers to and from cryptocurrency for clients to send funds to China for under-invoiced imports.

In the Birfa case, remittances totaling $540 million were diverted to entities in Hong Kong and Canada controlled by fraudsters, disguised as server leasing and escrow services using fraudulent invoices.

An ED report estimates that Indians suffered losses exceeding $2.56 billion across approximately 3.64 million financial fraud cases reported in 2024.

Financial fraud losses escalate

This marks a 206% increase in losses from $840 million in 2023 and a rise of over 50% in reported cases from 2.44 million in the previous year.

Investigations into similar cyber investment scams have revealed that masterminds based in Laos, Hong Kong, and Thailand hired agents in India to create shell companies using forged documents.

These operations issued fraudulent IPO allotments and stock market investments while executing fake digital arrests to intimidate victims.

Criminal proceeds were funneled through shell companies, converted into cryptocurrencies, and transferred abroad as payments for fictitious imported services.

While many of these illicit transactions were facilitated by international payment gateways, a portion of the funds was also laundered through hawala channels. Some proceeds returned to India disguised as legitimate stock market investments.