The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Odisha police has arrested two individuals from West Bengal for his or her reported involvement in a ponzi scheme, whereas the cash duped by them may cross ₹1,000 crore.
About 800 buyers from Odisha’s Ganjam district filed a criticism that they invested cash in 18football.com, a ponzi scheme (multilevel advertising and marketing) run on-line, giving a reputation of soccer betting or gaming utility, and had been cheated.
The two accused had been recognized as Rustam Khan and Md. Hakim, administrators of a ‘shell’ firm — Hakim and Rustam Fabrics Private Limited, Kolkata.
“Investors were promised of giving lucrative benefits like 3% daily compound return on investment, recharge bonus, referral bonus, extra bonus on the earning of the down line members and salary bonus with daily withdrawal option,” stated Jai Narayan Pankaj, Inspector General of Police and head of the EOW.
As per the modus operandi revealed by the EOW, buyers had been required to create an account with ‘18football.com’ both by utility or by offline referral hyperlink, and had been being requested to wager cash in some soccer matches as prescribed in the web site or app.
Foreigner ‘mentor’
Investors had been additionally supplied with the so-called foreigner ‘mentor’ to help them in betting whereas mentors used to speak by telegram or Apps solely, the investigating company stated.
“In order to promote and to allure the innocent public, the fraudsters were taking up promotional activities like some social works and charity in rural areas and giving it huge publicity so that people will consider this scheme as a bona fide organisation,” the company stated.
The fraudsters, in response to the EOW, initially paid the promised return for few days to the buyers, but in the latter stage when the membership elevated, they stopped making any cost and closed the app ‘18football.com’.
Investigation discovered that the scamsters had used a number of shell firms or corporations and their administrators to route the ill-gotten cash.
“They also used mule accounts for multilayering of money transaction to confuse the law enforcement agencies. One of the companies was Kolkata-based Hakim and Rustam Fabrics Private Limited of which the two arrested fraudsters were the directors. They had confessed to get small amount of commission to run this shell company,” stated Mr. Pankaj.
The accused confessed that they used to get the order from one Md. Sheikh Saifi from Dubai. Out of 150 financial institution accounts concerned in this racket, the EOW has analysed 17 accounts until date. Transactions of ₹108 crores have already been traced. It is suspected that cash concerned in this scam may transcend ₹1,000 crore.
The investigators suspected it to be an enormous worldwide scam as the web site was registered in Hong Kong, however operated from Dubai. The EOW would contain different regulation enforcement businesses of the Centre and different State governments to unearth the scam.
