ED Raids 8 Locations in India in ₹2,300 Crore Crypto Scam: The Crackdown Begins

India's Enforcement Directorate just turned up the heat on crypto's shadow economy.

In a coordinated sweep across multiple states, investigators raided eight locations tied to a single alleged fraud. The target? A digital asset scheme that authorities claim siphoned off a staggering ₹2,300 crore from investors.

Following the Digital Trail

This isn't a story about blockchain's promise—it's about its misuse. The raids signal a new phase of regulatory scrutiny, where on-chain anonymity meets old-fashioned investigative legwork. Probes are now tracing wallet addresses, exchange flows, and the complex web of transactions that fraudsters hoped would obscure their tracks.

The High Cost of Low Oversight

The alleged scam's scale—₹2,300 crore—highlights a painful reality. For every legitimate project building the future of finance, there's a bad actor exploiting the hype and regulatory gray areas. It's a tax on innovation, paid by trusting investors and ultimately damaging public perception.

Enforcement actions like these are a necessary purge. They separate the builders from the scammers, applying real-world consequences to digital fraud. For the crypto industry to mature, it needs more than bullish price charts—it needs this kind of accountability. After all, what's a few billion between friends, if it's not your money?

How the scam operated

As stated by the ED, such scam operates under a variety of fake cryptocurrency exchanges such as Korvio, Voscrow, DGT, Hypenext, and A-Global. Investors were lured with promises of unusually high returns, while the platforms functioned as Ponzi schemes, using money from new investors to pay earlier participants.

Investigation uncovered that the accused formed and relabeled different crypto scam sites to cover up their scam. It was unearthed that prices for tokens were rigged, and massive cash inflows were channeled through realty developers, shell companies, and bank accounts of the accused persons and their families for money laundering.

Some of these commission agents are alleged to have earned crores of rupees by attracting new investors, and foreign travel opportunities were used to spread this investment scam.

Assets seized and ongoing probe

The investigation also uncovered violations of freezing orders issued in November 2023. Despite these restrictions, 15 plots of land in Zirakpur, Punjab, were sold by Vijay Juneja, one of the accused who was arrested by Himachal Pradesh Police in 2025. 

The ED said the sale was carried out in clear violation of the law, even though the freezing orders had been communicated to the finance department, courts, and revenue authorities in Punjab.

As part of the operation, the ED froze three lockers and bank deposits totaling around ₹1.2 crore (about $132k). Officials also seized investor databases, commission structures, digital devices, and documents related to investments in several immovable properties, including benami assets acquired using the proceeds of the scam.

Further investigations are being conducted as law enforcers continue to follow money trails and other people involved in this matter.

Also Read: RBI Deputy Governor: Crypto & Stablecoins are Threat to Monetary Stability