A Delhi court has extended the custody of Hari Om Rai, the managing director of Lava International, by three days in a case of alleged money laundering involving smartphone company Vivo. The court also granted the Enforcement Directorate (ED) four more days of custody for questioning Chinese national Guangwen alias Andrew Kuang and chartered accountant Nitin Garg. The ED has accused Vivo of illegally transferring Rs 62,476 crore of its revenues to China to avoid taxes in India.
Earlier this week, ED arrested four executives of Vivo including the petitioner, Guangwen Kuang alias Andrew over allegations of money laundering. The ED contested that those arrested helped in the incorporation of a mesh of 18-19 companies in India having Chinese nationals as their directors and that despite them operating in India, their data was not maintained in India, rather maintained in the servers in China.
The federal agency, which earlier this week arrested three executives of Vivo India and Managing Director of Lava International, has alleged that besides Vivo India, a total of 19 companies were set up after the inception of Vivo India (in 2014) which were “ultimately controlled” by Ms/ Vivo Mobile Communication Co China.
The ED has claimed that to give effect to their “evil designs” at least “30 Chinese individuals entered India using business visa with the intent to work as employees in Vivo companies. Though they worked for Vivo companies in India, they never disclosed Vivo companies as their employer in their visa applications”.
The ED had sought a 10-day extension in the remand of the four accused, saying that it wants to confront them with 13 witnesses and over 4 terabytes of data from multiple devices they have seized. Additional Sessions Judge Devender Kumar Jangala had on October 10 sent the accused to EDs custody for three days. The four accused — Hari Om Rai, the MD of Lava International, Chinese national Guangwen alias Andrew Kuang, and chartered accountants Nitin Garg, and Rajan Malik were produced in the court on Friday upon expiry of custody.