NEW DELHI: The Directorate of Law Enforcement said on Saturday it seized a cryptocurrency worth more than 130 crore rupees and arrested a man in Uttarakhand as part of a cash laundering investigation related to drug trafficking launched at the request of US authorities.
Parvinder Singh was arrested on 27 April in Haldwani, Nainital district, following a search of his premises.
In one series, the Central Investigation Agency said the defendant had agreed to “return” profits made from the sale of illegal drugs through the dark net. Most of the sales were made in European countries, he added.
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The investigation was opened on the basis of a request for mutual legal assistance obtained from the U. S. government invoking the “unique” Section 2(ra) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, he said.
The article deals with offences with cross-border implications, with offences indexed in the table corresponding to the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS), the Directorate of Law Enforcement (ED) said.
Parvinder Singh, his brother Banmeet Singh and a few others ran a drug trafficking organization called “Singh DTO,” he said.
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DTO, for the agency, stands for “drug trafficking organization. “
They used vendor marketing sites on the dark web, loose ads on the transparent internet, and a network of sellers of narcotics and controlled substances to sell drugs in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other European countries, the ED said.
The “Singh Organization,” he claims, made “the profits from drug trafficking” by selling on dark internet marketplaces, and then laundered those profits through cryptocurrency transactions.
Bitcoins (a form of cryptocurrency) worth 130. 48 crore to date were seized in the search operation, the company said.
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The brothers, according to the ED, have used the nickname “Liston” in dark internet marketplaces such as “Silk Road 1,” “Alpha Bay” and “Hansa. “
“According to the information, they earned Bitcoins related to the nickname ‘Liston,’ which were not yet the proceeds of crime from the illegal sale of drugs in countries,” he said.
The U. S. government has already seized billions of rupees worth of bitcoins, he added.
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