Vivo PMLA case: Delhi Court sends four persons to ED remand till Oct 13

New Delhi [India]: The Patiala House Court of Delhi on Tuesday sent four accused persons to remand till October 13 in connection with a Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case related to the Chinese mobile company Vivo.

The Additional Sessions Judge Devender Kumar Jangala said, considering the facts and circumstances of the case and that to unearth the complete conspiracy, I am of the considered opinion that the custody remand of the accused persons Hari Om Rai, Nitin Garg, Rajan Malik and Guangwen Kuang at Andrew is necessary.

Accused persons namely Hari Om Rai, Nitin Garg, Rajan Malik and Guangwen Kuang at Andrew are accordingly remanded to ED custody till 13.10.2023 (three days), stated the court.

However, it is directed that his interrogation shall be conducted at some place having CCTV coverage in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court.

Accused persons shall be medically examined once in every 48 hours during the above period and in terms of provisions contained in Section 4ID Cr.P.C., the accused persons shall also be permitted to meet their Advocates, further said the Court.

In the matter Manish Jain and Simon Benjamin, Special Public Prosecutor appeared for ED along with Advocates Ishaan Baisla, Amit Jain, Mridul Singh and Shiwani Priya, Advocates.

Senior Advocates N Hariharan and Siddharth Agarwal and advocates alongwith Mudit Jain and Aashul Aggarwal appeared for Chinese national Guangwen Kuang at Andrew in the matter and gave their submissions opposing remand application moved by the ED.

Manu Sharma, Abhit Datt, Abhay Raj Verma, Gyanendra Kumar, Karl P Rustomkhan, Z Abdullah, Arjun Rekhi and Kartikay counsels appeared for the accused Hari Om Rai.

Advocates Nitesh Rana, Mohit Kumar Gupta, Deepak Nagar, Nikhil Kohli, Utkarsh Anand, Mithilesh Jaiswal, Shashi and Kaushal Kait, counsel for accused Rajan Malik also strongly objected to ED’s remand application for demanding 10 days of remand of accused.

Shri Singh, Samarth K Luthra, Ankit Bhatia, Aman Sharma and Gurfateh Singh Khosa, counsel for the accused Nitin Garg in the matter gave their submissions against the ED remand plea.

According to the ED Lawyer Manish Jain, certain Chinese Shareholders of Grand Prospect Internation Communication Private Ltd incorporated the company on the basis of forged identification documents and falsified addresses.

During the course of enquiry, certain fraudulent activities were found by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. The said company was not reported as a subsidiary of Vivo in the official records whereas the said company publicly projects itself to be a subsidiary of Vivo.

ED further alleged that Director and Share Holder Zhang Jie used a false driving licence for applying Director Identification Number(DIN) to give his Shillong Address and also used his fake driving licence in opening the bank account. With the allegations of cheating an FIR in Police station Kalkaji, South East Delhi registered under Section 417/120B/420 IPC and another FIR also registered under Section 417/420/468/471/120B IPC by the Economic Offence Wing, Delhi Police on the basis of a complaint filed by Manjit Singh, the then Deputy Registrar of Companies, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, NCT of Delhi.

ED further alleged that soon after the incorporation of Vivo, India, 19 more companies including GPICPL were incorporated across India, completely controlled by Chinese Nationals.

The accused Bin Luo was the founding/first Director of Vivo India, GPICPL and all other 18 entities at the time of their incorporation and the accused Nitin Garg, had assisted in the incorporation of most of the companies of Vivo Group.

According to the Enforcement Directorate raids were on the premises of the accused on 9th October and seized cash amounting to more than Rs 10 lakhs and arrested four accused who have been identified as Guangwen Kyang aka Andrew Kuang, the Chinese National, Hari Om Rai, the MD of Lava International, Rajan Malik, and Nitin Garg, a Chartered Accountant.

The probe revealed that the PMLA investigation by ED was initiated by registering a money laundering case on February 3, 2022.