Ashneer Grover, former managing director of BharatPe, and his wife Madhuri Jain were halted at the Indira Gandhi International Airport Thursday evening on their way to New York, according to persons familiar with the situation.

"Ashneer and his wife were going on a vacation to New York and were stopped by the Economic Offences Wing of Delhi police," a person familiar with the matter said. The EOW issued a lookout circular (LoC) earlier this week as part of continuing investigations into the two for alleged fraud at BharatPe, according to officials.

Sindhu Pillai, joint commissioner of police (EOW), confirmed that the couple was on their way to New York. "They were detained before a security check and asked to return to their Delhi residence and join the probe at the EOW office at Mandir Marg next week," added the official. Pillai further stated that the LoC was only put in place to prevent the pair from traveling abroad. "They have not yet been arrested," she adds.

According to an inquiry by the EOW of Delhi Police, recruiting firms associated with BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover and his family members utilized backdated invoices to siphon off payments for services they never accomplished for the fintech startup. 

The investigation team was also unable to identify several of the companies to which BharatPe had made vendor payments. BharatPe filed a criminal case against Grover, his wife, and her family members in December 2022, charging them with committing an 81.28 crore fraud. One of the claims was that BharatPe paid 7.6 crore to eight HR consultants associated with the defendants between 2018 and 2021.