TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (4) TMI 572
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....nam, India- 600035 1. Debit Freeze vide freezing order 23.09.2022 (copy enclosed) on the following bank accounts of M/s Code Payments India Private Limited i. Account No. 042-814954-001 maintained with HSBC Bank ii. Account No. 22105074914 maintained with SCB Bank iii. Account No. 715176009 maintained with CITI Bank iv. Account No. 055505010865 maintained with ICICI Bank v. Account No. 57500000994865 maintained with HDFC Bank Along with any other bank account / deposit account maintained by M/s CPIPL with the above banks. 2. Debit Freeze vide freezing order 23.09.2022 (copy enclosed) on all the Merchant IDs of M/s Code Payments India Private Limited maintained with following payment aggregators / payment gateways: Name of the Payment Aggregator /Payment Gateway Freecharge Payment Technologies Private Limited One 97 Communication India Ltd. Stripe India Private Limited PayZap/Rapyd (HDFC) One Mobikwik Systems Private Limited Rapyd Aggregator Network India Private Limited - Payzapp and Jio Money Paysense Consultancy Services India Private Limited (Lazy Pay) Paytm Payments Services Limited. Juspay Technologies Private Limited. ....
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....hese tokens and the Indian company receives all these tokens from Singapore. There is an online platform, named Coda Shop, for digital token where interested person can buy those tokens. For the sale of these tokens in India, the Singapore Company raises invoices against the Indian company. The final beneficiary of the revenue generated through the sale of tokens in India is M/s Coda Payments Pte. Ltd. Singapore. Sh. Raymond Wijaya and Sh. Philippe Zean Yves Limes and Sh. Chandra Prathap are current directors of the company. At the time of incorporation Sh. Neil Frederic Davidson was director who was replaced by Sh. Raymond Wijaya. M/s Coda Payments India Private Limited has many prominent Games / apps like Garena Free Fire, Call on Duty, Teen Patti Gold etc. as its clients. One of its client Garena International Private Limited does not have any registered entity in India, therefore it signed an agreement with Coda Payments India Private Limited for providing payment services in India. Further Coda Payments India Private Limited made an agreement with Paytm and other payment gateways / aggregators for payment gateway services. Coda Payments India Private Limited (CPIPL) i....
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....ited and on the other contends that it sends payments to its parent Company Coda Payments Pte Ltd, Singapore. It is not made clear as to how the Coda Singapore has come into picture. This itself shows that Coda India is not just an intermediary. The revenue collected by the company during the period 2018 to 2022 alone is 2850 Crore (approx) out of which an amount of 2320 crore (approx.) has already been sent outside India. It is not out of place to mention that the precious foreign exchange of the country and the hard earned money of the public is to be safeguarded and hence the Respondent is duty bound to take necessary steps. The only director who appeared before this department could not provide sufficient details and himself admitted that he only takes care of secretarial work. The Directors who actually make the decisions have not cooperated with the investigation. The non-cooperation of the company can clearly be ascertained from the below table which shows that the responsible persons of company's management have never appeared before this department even after multiple summons and reminder. S.N Name of Person Date of Summon Date of Appearance ....
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.... Ludo Club • Carrom Gold • Tinder • Micecraft • 8 Ball Pool • Stream Wallet Code • Previously Garena Free Fire was also there in which case the complaints have been filed. • It has been found that Coda Payments India Pvt. Ltd. was incorporated only to act as an agent of Coda Payments Singapore Pte Ltd. for collecting money from the users and remitting it to the parent company. M/s CPIPL has been collecting money in the name of sale of digital content and remitting it to parent company in Singapore in the name of sale and purchase of digital content, however, the entire operations of Codashop which sells the tokens being managed by Coda Singapore only and there is no actual sale or purchase of digital content by CPIPL. • It is only a conduit to remit funds outside India. Till date the amount collected by CPIPL is Rs.2850 Crore, out of which,Rs.2265 Crore has been remitted outside India after retaining certain percentage of revenue for payment of taxes and nominal profits. • CPIPL does not decide the type of coins or digital content it can sell to its customers; it doe....
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.... involved in money-laundering, the impugned order deserves to be set-aside having been passed in violation of Section 8(3) of the Act of 2002. 9. The Ld. Counsel for the appellant did not raise any other issue than referred to above, though he was having an opportunity to raise any other issue(s). The Ld. Counsel for the appellant closed his arguments in reference to the three grounds raised by him for challenge to the impugned order. 10. The Counsel for the respondent contested the appeal on all the grounds. It was submitted that the allegations against the accused are serious. In fact Rs.2850 crores (approx) is involved in this case and out of which the appellant remain successful to transmit Rs.2320 crores(approx) outside India. It is, thus, not correct to state that the proceeds of crime involved in this matter is only of Rs. 25 lakhs while seizure involves an amount of Rs.100 crores. The calculation of proceeds of crime by the appellant is based on its own imagination. 11. The Ld. Counsel for the respondent further submitted that the reason to believe was recorded by the Officer authorized by the Director and was sent to the Adjudicating Authority. The rules provide p....
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....website, they could not know that M/s Coda Payment India Private Limited was actually collecting money from them. Due to lack of transparency, the people were not knowing that appellant's company was an entity behind the unauthorized deductions from their accounts and hence the appellant's name may not appear in all the FIRs, but the Company has collected the money. An amount of Rs.2850 crore was collected and out of it Rs.2320 crore was transmitted out of India. The appellant company was keeping its ratio of profit. The appellant company otherwise failed to disclose source of Rs.100 crore in their account though required under Section 8(1) of the Act of 2002 for which show cause notice was given by the Adjudicating Authority. In view of the above, first ground of challenge to the order is not made out. 17. It has come on record that reasons to believe were recorded under Section 20(1) of the Act of 2002. It was sent to the Adjudicating Authority and has been quoted by us. The procedure under Section 17 of the Act of 2002 was also followed. The reasons to believe under section 20(1) of the Act of 2002 were recorded in writing and forwarded to the Adjudicating Authority. It is, t....
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....imited issues before the Adjudicating Authority. However, it is true that the mandate of Section 8(2) of the Act of 2002 provides that the Adjudicating Authority is to record its prima facie opinion / finding that property is involved in money-laundering. If the Adjudicating Authority has not recorded its finding in so many so words, we find that the material available on record is sufficient to show that the property / document are involved in money-laundering and for that we can record our finding to cure the defect, if any. It is for the reasons that the appellant along with others cheated the public in general by evolving cyber fraud and therefore Cyber Police Station, Hyderabad registered 10 FIRs and in this case most of the victims were at the age of 10-16 years got involved in the game with the use of smartphone/laptop. It was designed in such a manner that one should participate in the game till the end to remain successful. 22. The Adjudicating Authority has cautiously recorded its finding and final word on commission of offence would be recorded by the Special Court trying the criminal case and in that eventuality the property would be confiscated to the Central Govern....