More than 1,200 mule credit cards, found in a single premises during the searches, have also been seized, it said.Describing the alleged modus operandi deployed by the betting platform, the ED said it routed users’ fund through mule accounts using different strategies across the country.In one case, it said, funds deposited by users into mule accounts were withdrawn in cash in a specific locality in Tamil Nadu.This cash was handed over to hawala operators, who used it to recharge virtual wallets of a UK-based company.These wallets were used to buy cryptocurrency in the name of mule crypto accounts, which were actually operated by Parimatch agents, it alleged.In western India, the ED said, Parimatch engaged services of domestic money transfer (DMT) agents.Funds collected in mule accounts controlled by these DMT agents were sent to Parimatch agents through payments made by mule credit cards.The ED said it found that payment companies whose application for payment aggregator licences were rejected by the RBI offered their services to Parimatch in garb of technology service providers (TSPs) and offered their API (application programming interface) to facilitate user fund collections.”These TSPs offered the API to Parimatch agents who onboarded mule accounts opened in the name of e-commerce companies and payment solution provider companies for collection of funds from users,” the ED probe found.The money so collected through UPI transfers was “layered” and transferred out in the garb of e-commerce refunds, chargebacks, vendor payments etc effectively “concealing” the actual flow and purpose of funds, it said.
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