Lakshay Vij withdraws bail plea in money laundering case from Delhi HC

New Delhi [India], February 7 (ANI): Lakshay Vij, accused in a money laundering case linked to transnational cyber fraud, has withdrawn his bail plea from the Delhi High Court on Friday.
Vij, who is currently on medical bail, had his bail plea opposed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which also filed a reply to the plea. Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani allowed Vij's counsel to withdraw the bail plea, granting him the liberty to approach the trial court for bail instead.
Earlier Rouse Avenue court dismissed Vij's bail plea in November 2024, citing his alleged role in floating bank accounts with fake identities. Vij was arrested in July 2024, and a Prosecution Complaint (PC) has been filed in the case, which involved alleged transnational cyber fraud totalling approximately Rs 500 crores.
The Court said, "As per the Prosecution Complaint (PC) several hundreds crores of rupees approximately Rs 500 crores were laundered/layered/ transferred in around one year in dummy/fake accounts from the accounts, also in the name of dummy/fake entities, wherein the amounts received from defrauding Lisa Roth money was credited."
"As is evident from the PC, statement of independent witnesses including Ashish Kumar and the Whatsapp chats/messages in the Whatsapp group "LV persnal jaiguruji" it was the applicant who played a major role in floating of bank accounts in the name of fake/dummy entities and also provided the account details for transferring the proceeds of crime, the amount received from sale of USDTs. Hence there is much more to the present matter than what meets the eyes," Special Judge Rao observed in the order dated November 18.
The court had previously rejected Vij's bail application, noting that he appeared to be a flight risk and might influence witnesses or commit further offenses while on bail. The ED had also expressed concerns that Vij might flee the country, given his history of travel to Dubai and entry into India through Nepal.
While dismissing the bail application, the court rejected the arguements of delay in trial and long incarceration.
The court noted that apart from money laundering, as per the PC, Vij was running various betting platforms and also promoting betting platforms through Instagram influencers and ED, Delhi has received a letter from its Chattisgarh office about involvement of applicant in Mahadev betting app case.
The court said, "With such kind of allegations it cannot be said at this stage that he is not likely to commit any offence while on bail."
The court also said that the applicant indeed appears to be a flight risk. ED's apprehension
that he may try to flee, and avoid trial cannot be completely negated considering the fact that the applicant having travelled to Dubai, entered India through Nepal/other country via road instead of taking a flight to Delhi and at that time LOC was opened by CBI.
"As per the immigration record, he is still in Dubai. When the applicant has been using/has used the said channel to come to India it cannot be completely ruled out that he might adopt the same channel to abscond and thus frustrate the trial," the court observed.
It had observed, "Opening of LOC shall not serve any purpose once the applicant uses the said route to leave India. Also, it has already been discussed in the earlier bail order that the applicant may influence the witnesses and thus jeopardise the trial which is yet to start. One of the masterminds Karan Chugh already absconding the situation may worsen if the applicant is enlarged on bail."
Vij's case is linked to the hacking of Lisa Roth's laptop, which led to a USD 400,000 fraud. The ED alleged that Vij played a major role in laundering the stolen funds through fake bank accounts and cryptocurrency transactions (ANI)