India arrests Chinese employee of smartphone maker Vivo

A Vivo smartphone store as seen at a street in Kolkata, India.

By Mariko Oi and Nikhil Inamdar

News from BBC

A Chinese worker for the smartphone manufacturer Vivo has been detained by India’s economic crimes company, according to the company.

Vivo stated that it” will exercising all available legal choices” on behalf of its staff, Andrew Kuang, though American officials have not yet commented.

Last month, Vivo’s business was raided on suspicion of receiving unauthorized transfers from China from India.

According to business information, it is the second-largest cellphone brand in India after Samsung.

The collar is related to a growing split between China and India.

Reuters reported last week that Vivo had been publicly charged by American police with aiding in the illegal transfer of money to NewsClick, a news website that is being looked into on suspicion of disseminating Chinese propaganda.

The Prevention of Money Laundering Act( PMLA ) led to the arrest on Tuesday. According to Atul Pandey, Senior Partner at the law firm Khaitan, it is” a very strict laws and allows for legal cases to get filed, unlike normal foreign exchange breaches which are primarily considered polite acts.”

Vivo has also been charged by the income police organization with evading custom. BBK Electronics, a Chinese company that also sells products like Oppo and Realme in India, is the company’s owner.

American authorities have frozen$ 670 million in property over the past 18 months in an effort to take advantage of different Chinese mobile phone manufacturers like Xiaomi.

Rajeev Chandrashekhar, India’s minister of state for gadgets and That, informed parliament earlier this year that$ 1.1 billion in income had been evaded by Chinese businesses. Just about 18 % of this volume, he claimed, had been recovered by the government.

A mature legal expert who represents several Chinese businesses in India told the BBC under the condition of anonymity that the assault was originally intended to put pressure on the Chinese government following a deadly border conflict in 2020 that resulted in 24 soldiers’ deaths. At that time, India had outlawed thousands of Taiwanese apps, including TikTok.

Since then, relations between the neighbors have deteriorated, with India most just registering” solid protest” over a new Taiwanese map that it claimed claimed as claiming its territory.