 "Cherry Yacht, Spanish Villas And Rs 800 Crore Vanish: Inside ED's OctaFX Crackdown")
A luxury yacht is among Rs 131.45 crore assets seized by the ED from Pavel Prozorov. (Photo: ANI)
New Delhi: A luxury yacht gliding through the Mediterranean. Two sun-drenched homes on Spain’s coastline. A shiny minijet boat. And a man named Pavel Prozorov.
That is the story unfolding as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) dives deep into a massive forex scam involving the controversial platform OctaFX. On July 3, the agency confirmed it had attached foreign assets worth Rs 131.45 crore belonging to Prozorov, who is believed to have masterminded the operation.
Cherry Yacht and a Fake Empire
The centrepiece? A gleaming Italian-model vessel called Cherry. It is not merely a yacht; it is a floating symbol of how deep the alleged scam goes. Docked in the western Mediterranean, it was just one part of an elaborate maze of offshore luxury bought with money the ED says was stolen from Indian investors.
The platform behind this? OctaFX. Marketed through celebrity endorsements, cricket tournaments and viral social media ads, OctaFX promised high returns on forex trading. But beneath that shiny exterior, the ED says, was a dark money-laundering engine.
How the Scam Worked
It started with promises – get-rich-quick schemes, flashy ads and high-return guarantees. But the real strategy, according to the ED, was deception.
The platform allegedly used mule accounts to receive funds. These were set up in the names of fake e-commerce businesses. Behind them stood shell companies, false directors and manipulated KYC documents. These firms used payment gateways to disguise themselves as legit online merchants.
Once the money landed, it vanished. Layer after layer. From India to Europe to Asia. Investigators found funds had been laundered through unauthorised aggregators, bogus service imports and offshore entities. A complex web designed to blur ownership and bury trails.
Digital Tricks, Disappearing URLs
OctaFX kept changing its login URLs. Web addresses shifted frequently. The goal was to stay one step ahead. Many investors, left in the dark, struggled to track their own money.
Trade data was reportedly manipulated. Losses were engineered. Profits faked. The money, investigators believe, flowed into e-wallets and bank accounts operated by fictitious names controlled by Prozorov and his global network.
According to the ED, in just nine months, OctaFX generated criminal proceeds worth at least Rs 800 crore from operations within India alone.
Bigger Than Cherry
The Rs 131 crore seizure is not the agency’s first move. In earlier action, assets worth Rs 296 crore were frozen. That included 19 properties – also in Spain – linked to Prozorov. The total suspected fraud may be far higher.
Funds were allegedly moved under the pretense of service imports to entities spread across Spain, Estonia, Russia, Hong Kong, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. Each one, according to investigators, tied back to the same man.
The ED has already filed two chargesheets. OctaFX and 54 other entities stand accused. The trail now runs through more than one continent.
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