The Enforcement Directorate (ED), Panaji Zonal Office, arrested Mumbai-based advocate Rashesh Bharatkumar Upadhyay (also known as Rashesh Shah) on 24 October 2026 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
He was intercepted at a boarding gate of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai while attempting to board an early-morning connecting flight to Delhi without a return booking.
Mumbai Customs and the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) assisted in locating and apprehending him. A Special Court under the PMLA in North Goa remanded him to ED custody until 29 October 2026. This is the seventh arrest in the investigation.
The money-laundering probe stems from an FIR registered by the Cyber Crime Police Station, North Goa, on 9 June 2025. A Goa-based woman (and her husband) was allegedly subjected to a “digital arrest.”
Fraudsters impersonating officials of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) placed the couple under continuous video surveillance, displayed a forged Supreme Court order, and coerced the transfer of approximately ₹2.60 crore (₹2,60,33,634) between 21 May and 2 June 2025 into accounts falsely described as “Secret Supervision Accounts.”
The funds were rapidly routed through more than 400 mule accounts linked to commodity, trading, travel, and foreign-exchange entities controlled through dummy directors.