announced<\/a> the arrest of Pavel Prozorov, the alleged mastermind behind the multi-billion-dollar OctaFX Ponzi scheme.<\/p>\nSpanish authorities arrested Prozorov based on his involvement in cybercrimes affecting multiple countries, according to an ED statement.<\/p>\n
The provisional order issued under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act attaches the cryptocurrency holdings as part of an ongoing investigation into the unauthorized forex trading platform OctaFX.<\/p>\n
The platform allegedly duped Indian investors of $225 million between July 2022 and April 2023.<\/p>\n
They also reportedly generated profits of approximately $96 million through a multi-country operation that operated from 2019 to 2024.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Distributed global network evaded regulatory scrutiny<\/h3>\n
The ED probe found that OctaFX operated through a distributed global network designed to evade regulatory oversight and layer illicit funds across multiple jurisdictions.<\/p>\n
Marketing activities were managed by entities in the British Virgin Islands, with Spanish-based entities and individuals hosting servers and back-office operations.<\/p>\n
Estonian entities handled payment gateways, Georgian operations provided technical support, and a Cyprus-based company served as the holding entity for Indian operations.<\/p>\n
Dubai-based entities oversaw Indian activities through Russian promoters, while Singapore entities facilitated the export of bogus services to launder funds abroad.<\/p>\n
OctaFX presented itself as an online forex trading platform for currency, commodities and crypto trading without Reserve Bank of India permission.<\/p>\n
Total profits from India are estimated to exceed $600 million, with a significant portion of this amount illicitly transferred overseas through the use of fake imports of software and R&D services.<\/p>\n
The funds were routed to entities controlled by Prozorov in Spain, Estonia, Russia, Hong Kong, Singapore, UAE, and the UK.<\/p>\n
OctaFX layering scheme used UPI and FDI routes<\/h3>\n
OctaFX collected investor funds through UPI payment systems and local bank transfers. They then routed them through dummy Indian entities and individual accounts before layering across multiple mule accounts.<\/p>\n
A portion of the laundered funds was later reintroduced into India as foreign direct investment, creating a circular flow that obscured its illicit origins.<\/p>\n
The ED has attached total assets worth $321 million in this case. This includes 19 immovable properties and a luxury yacht in Spain owned by Prozorov. The seizures are one of India\u2019s most significant cryptocurrency-related enforcement actions under money laundering laws.<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India\u2019s Enforcement Directorate has seized cryptocurrency worth $286 million under anti-money laundering laws. Summary ED seizes $286M in crypto under anti-money laundering probe into OctaFX. Pavel Prozorov, the OctaFX mastermind,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13711,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13710\/revisions\/13711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}