ED raids audit firm employee’s home over ‘crypto funds for Maharashtra polls’ scam

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is conducting searches at audit firm employee Gaurav Mehta’s residence in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur in connection with the “crypto funds for Maharashtra polls” scam linked to NCP (SP) leader Supriya Sule and state Congress chief Nana Patole.
Gaurav Mehta’s name came under the spotlight after former IPS officer Ravindranath Patil named him a key witness in the 2018 cryptocurrency fraud case.
Gaurav Mehta, a consultant with an audit firm, was assisting the Pune police in their investigation of the Rs 6,600 crore cryptocurrency scam.
Patil further claimed that Mehta was approached by Supriya Sule and Nana Patole, who sought cash from Bitcoins linked to the scam for election-related use.
Patil alleged that Supriya Sule and state Congress chief Nana Patole misappropriated bitcoins from the 2018 case and used the same fund to influence the outcome of the Maharashtra Assembly elections this year.
However, NCP (Sharad Pawar) leader Supriya Sule on Wednesday dismissed the allegations, saying that the voice in the audio clip played by BJP MP Sudhanshu Trivedi does not belong to her. “Not my voice. All these voice notes and messages are fake,” Sule told reporters today.
Patil had asserted that it was Gaurav Mehta who informed him about the 2018 Bitcoin fraud investigation. According to Patil, Mehta alleged that a hardware wallet containing Bitcoin was seized during the arrest of cryptocurrency dealer Amit Bharadwaj. However, a separate wallet was reportedly used instead, allegedly on the instructions of Amitabh Gupta, the Pune Police Commissioner at the time.
The allegations against Sule and Patole came only hours after the opposition accused the BJP general secretary in Maharashtra, Vinod Tawde of being involved in a “cash for votes” scam.
However, Tawde and the BJP have rejected the charge.