The Enforcement Directorate added five more accused to its Goa narcotics file this week and charged them with the crypto leg of the case. None of the five is accused of touching the drugs.
The agency’s case is that ₹3.96 crore in narcotics proceeds was layered through banking channels, routed to Dubai and converted into USDT, then spent on the dark web to buy the next consignment. The five names added this week are charged with running parts of that chain—generation, procurement, layering, concealment, and conversion.
The Directorate of Enforcement, Panaji Zonal Office, filed the supplementary prosecution complaint on September 18, 2026, before the Special Court under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in North Goa, naming Nihal Vadakkancherry Nazer, Prasobh P.K., Alfin Thomas, Dheeraj Mathews, and Nishant Pratap as Accused Nos. 8 to 12, according to an ED press release dated September 19, 2026.
What the Supplementary Complaint Contains
The complaint was filed under Section 44, read with Section 45 of the PMLA, 2002, for the offense of money laundering as defined under Section 3 and punishable under Section 4 of the Act. A supplementary prosecution complaint is an addition to an existing chargesheet, filed when further investigation identifies accused persons or material not covered by the original.
It continues from the main prosecution complaint dated March 16, 2026, which was filed against seven accused persons, and arises out of ECIR/PJZO/02/2025 dated February 13, 2025. An ECIR—Enforcement Case Information Report—is the ED’s internal equivalent of a police FIR and marks the formal start of a PMLA investigation.
The ED said the main complaint established the generation of proceeds of crime of approximately ₹3.96 crore through organized interstate and cross-border trafficking of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances. The five persons added this week are prosecuted, per the release, for their respective roles in the generation, procurement, layering, concealment, and conversion of those proceeds, including cross-border conversion into cryptocurrency.
The Route the ED Describes
The investigation was initiated on the basis of FIR No. 22/2024 dated October 15, 2024, registered by the Anti-Narcotic Cell, Police Station North Goa, under Sections 20(b)(ii)(A) and 22(c) of the NDPS Act, 1985, against Madhupan Suresh Sasikala.
The ED said its investigation has established that Madhupan S.S. generated proceeds of approximately ₹3.96 crore through organized interstate and cross-border narcotics trafficking since 2016. A part of those proceeds, the agency said, was layered through banking channels and routed to Dubai for conversion into cryptocurrency, specifically USDT, which was thereafter used to procure narcotic substances through the dark web.
USDT, or Tether, is a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar and the most widely used settlement asset in cross-border crypto transfers. The release does not identify the exchanges, wallets, or intermediaries through which the conversion is alleged to have occurred and does not quantify how much of the ₹3.96 crore took the crypto route.
The Attachment
The ED said proceeds of crime amounting to ₹939,250 in the hands of Anam Charan Pradhan, Accused No. 2, and ₹17.48 lakh in the hands of Uttam Chand, Accused No. 3, were identified during the investigation.
Equivalent immovable properties have been provisionally attached to those amounts—₹939,250 against Pradhan and ₹17.48 lakh against Uttam Chand—vide Provisional Attachment Order No. 13/2026 dated September 16, 2026. A provisional attachment under the PMLA freezes an asset pending confirmation by the Adjudicating Authority; it is not a forfeiture.
The agency said proceeds attributable to the five persons named in the supplementary complaint have also been quantified during further investigation, without stating those figures in the release.
A File The Crypto Times Has Tracked Since January
This is the third documented stage of the same investigation. In January 2026, the ED conducted searches at 26 locations across Goa, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Odisha, and the Delhi-NCR in the case, as The Crypto Times reported at the time, following a Goa seizure of narcotics worth ₹1.1 crore, including 1,825 LSD blots.
In July 2026, the agency arrested a Dubai-based Indian national identified in its statement as Nihal V.N., whom it described as the primary financial node converting Indian narcotics cash into cryptocurrency and foreign exchange. The first name on this week’s supplementary complaint is Nihal Vadakkancherry Nazer, listed as Accused No. 8.
The ED said the action forms part of the national objective under the Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan and that further investigation is in progress. The allegations are untested; a prosecution complaint is a charge, not a finding, and the accused have not been convicted.
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