Himachal Crypto Fraud: The Shimla sub-zonal office of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Milan Garg, Sukhdev Thakur, and Abhishek Sharma in connection with a high-profile money laundering probe linked to an alleged cryptocurrency scam in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab.
The trio was apprehended under Section 19(1) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. Following their arrest, they were produced before a special PMLA court in Shimla, which remanded them to 12 days of ED custody for further interrogation.
An ED spokesperson confirmed the development on Friday, stating that the federal agency initiated its money laundering probe based on initial First Information Reports (FIRs) registered by the Himachal Pradesh and Punjab police against Subhash Sharma and other accused.
According to the investigation, the accused lured a large number of investors by promising high and assured returns through various fake investment platforms, including Korvio, DGT, Hypnext, and A-Global.
The probe revealed that Subhash Sharma, along with Hem Raj, Milan Garg, Sukhdev Thakur, Abhishek Sharma, and other associates, launched a cryptocurrency-based Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) scheme in 2018. They designed an online platform for this purpose, which was later shifted to foreign servers of Digital Ocean and operated via domains such as korvio.io and voscrow.com.
The ED stated that the public was falsely assured of fixed, high returns upon investing in ‘Korvio Coin’ (KRO). Promotional events were organized to attract investors, token prices were intentionally manipulated, and funds collected from new investors were used to pay off older ones. The central agency noted that the entire operation was systematically run like a Ponzi scheme.
