OctaFx, which is accused of cheating investors of over Rs800 crore by its Indian subsidiary, has claimed that they have never adopted any manipulation tactics in their operations and always adhered to industry standards.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had in October submitted a prosecution complaint before the special PMLA court against a total of 54 accused for their alleged role in money laundering. The court took cognisance of the chargesheet last month and issued summons to all the accused to appear before the court on January 28.

While taking cognisance of the complaint the court had in its order noted, “This Forex trading platform is widely promoted on social networking sites and is following referral based incentive models for acquiring users to their platforms. The funds were collected from users. These funds were credited in the bank accounts of various dummy entities and domestically transferred to other banks for the purpose of layering. The said accumulated funds, after defrauding, were transferred to multiple e-wallet accounts or to bank accounts of dummy entities,” the court order further stated.

“The entire process of reflecting account numbers of dummy entities, managing the funds collected in these accounts and diversion of the same are being managed and operated by owners of OctaFx Group Entities. They have hired several Indian individuals working in Spain/Russia for operating the OctaFx trading platform,” the court has further noted, referring to the investigation done by ED, as stated by it in the complaint.

Responding to the allegations made by ED in its complaint, OctaFx claimed that it is a contract for difference (CFD) derivative broker, and functions as an intermediary between financial markets and traders.

“We enable our clients to trade various assets safely and securely. Brokers cannot affect the trading process, including charts and quote distribution; each trade is executed fairly and independently. As such, we fully adhere to industry standards and strongly deny any allegations of using ‘manipulation tactics’ in our operations,” the firm has said in its statement.