NEW DELHI: Two Chinese directors of a firm association with mobile maker Vivo fled the country as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) zoomed in with regards to a money laundering case.
As ED carried out searches at 44 locations on Wednesday, Zhengshen Ou and Zhang Jie, directors at GPICPL, fled from India via Nepal, sources told The New Indian. The agency had launched a probe against the two directors of the Himachal Pradesh-based company for having falsified documents.
Sources also said that the Solan-based company, represented by Chinese directors, was projecting itself to be associated with Vivo, as alleged in the FIR.
The ED has registered case fresh case of money laundering recently. The source said that the agency sleuths carried out searches at 44 locations in 22 states across the country. “The agency has, till now, got the leads of money laundering worth Rs 10,000 crore,” the source said.
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The source also said that the Chinese nationals were made directors in the Indian companies with falsified documents.
Hinting at a larger game plan, the source also said that the agency suspects that the Chinese companies were also trying to keep a vigil on the Tibetan population based in Himachal Pradesh as well as on Dalai Lama, who is based in Dharamshala.
The Chinese companies had their offices in Solan as well as in Srinagar, in Jammu and Kashmir.
The source also said that even the angle of espionage cannot be denied as of now. “More details will emerge once the investigators find more details in the case after the searches,” he added.
The development comes months after the ED attached assets worth Rs 5,500 crore of Xiaomi in connection with a violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). In April this year, the ED also questioned Xiaomi’s global vice-president Manu Kumar Jain in connection with the case.
The development holds significance as India and China are engaged in a bitter war of words over the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh.