ED issues lookout notice against Highrich owners for Rs 1157 crore fraud

KOCHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a lookout notice against Highrich Group owners KD Prathapan and his wife Sreena in the investment fraud case. An affidavit was also filed in the ED court opposing the anticipatory bail application filed by the accused.

According to the affidavit filed in the PMLA court in Kochi, the fraud committed is Rs 1157.32 crore and it asked the court to not grant bail to the accused taking into consideration the magnitude of the fraud. Investors were lured by illegal promises of multilevel marketing, cryptocurrency, and OTT platforms. Before the ED could reach them, the Highrich group owners went into oblivion.

Of the 19 cases against the accused., 10 were sorted out after settling it financially. The Highrich owners went on the run after ED raided their house last week. 212.45 crore bank account found in the raid had been frozen by ED. A lookout notice was issued after that.

Caution was also issued at places like airports and railway stations. The company and the house were inspected for two days. Most of the money collected was spent in the name of incentives and commissions. The remaining amount was utilized by the defendants as promoters.

The investment money was also used to make cryptocurrency for international transactions. The ED also found that the accused collected around Rs 20 crore from customers to invest in crypto-currency by offering huge interest.