ED questions Shilpa Shetty’s husband Raj Kundra in Bitcoin case

Mumbai, June 5 : The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday questioned Raj Kundra, husband of actor Shilpa Shetty, in connection with a money laundering probe related to a bitcoin transactions case, officials said.
The businessman was summoned at the ED office here and was asked questions about his involvement in the trade, termed as illegal by the government, they said.
There are some instances of the case that are linked to Kundra and hence, he had been asked to record his statement, the officials said without elaborating.
The ED, sometime back, had registered a criminal case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against bitcoin-based investment website GainBitcoin, its founder Amit Bhardwaj and eight others.
It is alleged that about 8,000 investors had lost about Rs 2,000 crore by transacting in this scheme.
The ED had filed its case based on an FIR of Maharashtra Police in this case and the Pune police had arrested Bhardwaj and his brother Vivek from Delhi earlier.
Bhardwaj reportedly was behind ventures like GainBitcoin, GBMiners, MCAP and GB21, and the investors were allegedly duped after transactions on these portals.
The central agency has expanded its probe into the case and is also investigating related bitcoin or cryptocurrency transactions that are under the scanner of other departments.