The Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) of the Odisha Police has arrested two persons from West Bengal for their alleged involvement in a Ponzi scheme, while the amount defrauded by them may cross ₹1,000 crore.
Around 800 investors from Odisha’s Ganjam district filed a complaint that they invested money in 18football.com, a Ponzi scheme (multi-level marketing) that runs online by the name of football betting or gaming application, and were cheated. .
The two accused have been identified as Rustam Khan and Mohd. Hakim, who was the director of a ‘shell’ company – Hakim and Rustom Fabrics Private Limited, Kolkata.
Jai Narayan Pankaj, Inspector General, said, “Investors were promised attractive benefits like 3% daily compounded return on investment, recharge bonus, referral bonus, additional bonus on down line members earnings and salary bonus with daily withdrawal option ” Chief of Police and EOW.
As per the modus operandi revealed by the EOW, investors were required to create an account with ’18football.com’ either through the application or through an offline referral link, and were asked to place money on certain football matches scheduled on the website or app. Had been. ,
foreign ‘patrons’
The probe agency said that so-called foreign ‘mentors’ were also provided to investors to help them in betting, while the mentors used to communicate only through telegrams or apps.
The agency said, “For promoting and luring the gullible people, the fraudsters were carrying out some promotional activities like social work and charity in rural areas and giving it wide publicity so that people would believe the scheme as a trustworthy organization.” Can.” ,
According to the EOW, the fraudsters initially promised investors returns for a few days, but at a later stage when subscriptions increased, they stopped making payments and shut down the ’18football.com’ app.
Investigation found that the scamsters had used several shell companies or firms and their directors to route the ill-gotten money.
“He also used mule accounts for multiplicity of money transactions to confuse the law enforcement agencies. One of the companies was Kolkata-based Hakeem and Rustom Fabrics Pvt Ltd, of which the two arrested fraudsters were directors. He had confessed to taking very little commission to run this shell company,” said Mr. Pankaj.
The accused confessed that they got a Mohd from Dubai. Sheikh Saifi’s order was received. Out of 150 bank accounts involved in this racket, EOW has so far analyzed 17 accounts. Transactions worth ₹108 crore have been traced. It is feared that the money involved in this scam could exceed Rs 1,000 crore.
Investigators suspected it to be a larger international scam as the website was registered in Hong Kong but operated from Dubai. The EOW will involve other law enforcement agencies of the central and other state governments to unearth the scam.