IT firm CEO sells drugs online, held

ONLINE FRAUD: Sanjay Kedia of Xponse Technologies was arrested on Sunday by the NCB team.

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New Delhi: A Kolkata based IT firm is in news for all wrong reasons. Sanjay Kedia, the CEO and director-cum-president of Xponse Technologies, Xponse IT Services and Xponse Inc, has been arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau for allegedly selling drugs on the internet. The firm is based in the city's IT hub at Salt Lake Sector-V.

Kedia was arrested on Sunday under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. Kedia was involved in trafficking psychotropic substances, mainly Phentermine, on the internet, PTI quoted NCB's Eastern Zonal Director Sandeep Mittal saying.

Kedia was arrested along with US-based Steven Mahana who owned a 49 per cent share in Xponse.

If convicted, he could face up to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 2 lakh.

Kedia was produced on Monday before a special judge at a court in Barasat who sent him to judicial custody.

However, Mittal said enforcement agencies in the US were in touch with him. "A team will go to the US to interrogate him. We are working out the formalities," he said.

On February 1, a team comprising IT experts and officials of the NCB, customs, central excise and public sector banks conducted searches in Kolkata and New Delhi.

These were supported by simultaneous searches by the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

"Documentary and digital evidence were seized during the searches. Evidence of money laundering in more than 20 Indian and multi-national bank accounts by Kedia and his companies have been seized," PTI quoted Mittal.

According to NCB’s information Kedia was laundering large sums of drug money in various international bank accounts in Hong Kong, Luxembourg, the US and Sweden.

Four Xponse employees were traced in Sweden. Kedia's bank accounts in India were frozen and transactions examined during the searches showed he had $10 million in bank accounts in Luxembourg opened under fictitious names.

Explaining Kedia's modus operandi, Mittal said he took orders for psychotropic substances - mainly from the US, Canada and Sweden - by using over toll-free numbers or the internet.

Kedia allegedly received payments through various gateways, including Paynova, which is used for high-risk internet transactions like gambling or obtaining membership of pornographic sites.

“Buyers from India and other Asian countries could not access Xponse's pharmacy websites that were protected by firewalls. Kedia's customers were mainly from the US and some other western countries," PTI quoted Mittal saying.