The Enforcement Directorate arrested Viraj Patil under money laundering provisions in an illegal TP Global FX case, a trading platform which is not authorised by the central bank to deal in forex.
"The members or participants of IX Global used the brokerage services of TP Global FX to do their forex trading. And IX Global derived the proceeds of crime in promoting TP Global FX, and Viraj Patil is one of the key persons in IX Global," the ED investigation revealed.
Viraj Patil was arrested from Mumbai on arrival on December 25 before which he was staying in Dubai. The ED press release said he has a resident identity card from the UAE and has been staying there since 2021.
Moneycontrol in October had first reported that Viraj Patil was suggesting IX Global participants use the TP Global FX platform for forex trading. IX Global, a multi-level marketing scheme company would offer automated trading which could only be accessed through the TP Global FX platform, which Patil was heard suggesting to the participants.
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ED investigation earlier had revealed that Prasenjit Das, Shailesh Kumar Pandey, Tushar Patel and other persons used various dummy companies or firms or entities to defraud the public under the guise of making investments in forex trading by using the TP Global FX platform.
Several victims lodged complaints with the Economic Offenses wing of Mumbai Police in July 2023 after providing bank statements that showed funds had been transferred to various accounts, including but not limited to PN Trader, SB VIN Trader, and others.
Now let's see how Viraj Patil is connected with other companies too.
Viraj Patil was the director of IX Academy Private Limited, now, the name has been changed to Pochen Global Services Private Limited, as per the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Joseph Martinez is the chief executive officer of IX Global LLC and one of the directors of IX Academy Private Limited.
Viraj Patil also represented TP Global FX at the Forex Expo in Dubai in 2021. The video of which is still available on YouTube.
Not new to this
Viraj Patil and Joseph Martinez were distributors of Kuvera LLC, a company which was penalised $150,000 by the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission for violating various sections of the Commodity Exchange Act.
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