ED files charge sheet in vivo India case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed its first charge sheet in connection with its money laundering probe against Chinese smartphone maker vivo-India and some others, official sources said on Thursday.

The prosecution complaint was filed before a special court here on Wednesday under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and vivoIndia has been named an accused apart from those arrested in this case, the sources said.

The federal probe agency arrested four people, including mobile company Lava International’s MD Hari Om Rai, in October as part of this investigation. The others who were taken into custody were Chinese national Guangwen alias Andrew Kuang and chartered accountants Nitin Garg and Rajan Malik. VivoIndia did not respond to an email sent in this regard.

The ED had claimed in its remand papers before a local court here that the alleged activities of the four arrested accused enabled vivo-India to make wrongful gains that were detrimental to the economic sovereignty of India. It had raided vivo-India and its linked persons in July last year, claiming to have busted a major money laundering racket involving Chinese nationals and multiple Indian companies. The ED had then alleged that a whopping Rs 62,476 crore was “illegally” transferred by vivo-India to China to avoid payment of taxes in India. The company had said that it “firmly adheres to its ethical principles and remains dedicated to legal compliance”. Rai had recently told a court here that though his company and vivo-India were in talks to launch a joint venture in India a decade ago, he had nothing to do with the Chinese firm or its representatives since 2014.