ED arrests Chinese national, Lava International MD in PMLA case involving vivo mobiles

In a big action against Chinese mobile phone maker Vivo India Pvt Ltd, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested four people, including a Chinese national and the MD of Lava International in connection with its probe into an alleged money laundering case. A top ED source told IANS that the agency has 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, the Chartered Accountant (CA).

The ED action comes almost more than a year after it carried out searches at 48 locations across the country belonging to vivo Mobiles India Private Limited and its 23 associated companies such as Grand Prospect International Communication Pvt Ltd (GPICPL). According to the ED, vivo Mobiles India Pvt Ltd was incorporated on August 1, 2014 as a subsidiary of Multi Accord Ltd, a Hong Kong based company and was registered at ROC Delhi.

GPICPL was registered on December 3, 2014 at ROC Shimla, with registered addresses of Solan, Himachal Pradesh and Gandhinagar, Jammu. “The said company was incorporated by Zhengshen Ou, Bin Lou and Zhang Jie with the help of Nitin Garg, CA. Bin Lou left India on April 26, 2018. Zhengshen Ou and Zhang Jie left India in 2021,” the financial probe agency had said. The ED probe had revealed that the PMLA investigation by ED was initiated by registering a money laundering case on February 3, 2022 on the basis of an FIR registered at the Kalkaji police station in the national capital by the Delhi Police under sections 417, 120B and 420 of IPC, 1860 against GPICPL and its Director, shareholders and certifying professionals, etc., on the basis of complaint filed by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

As per the FIR, GPICPL and its shareholders had used forged identification documents and falsified addresses at the time of incorporation. The allegations were found to be true as the investigation revealed that the addresses mentioned by the directors of GPICPL did not belong to them, but in fact it was a government building and house of a senior bureaucrat.

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