Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Odisha Crime Branch has unearthed another cryptocurrency-based Ponzi scam with the arrest of head of ‘YES WORLD Crypto Token’ Sandeep Choudhary from Jaipur in Rajasthan.
The EOW, in a release, informed that a lookout circular was issued against Choudhary to stop him from India and was detained by Bureau of Immigration while he was trying to take a flight to Dubai from Jaipur International airport. “A EOW team went to Jaipur and arrested the accused. He was produced before the local court in Jaipur on November 16. The court granted 5 days transit remand. He was brought to Odisha and he will be produced before the OPID Court, Cuttack,,” it said.
The state agency also arrested Basant Kumar Pradhan and Manoj Kumar Patnaik, up line members of Yes World in Odisha, from Bhubaneswar on November 16.
The release further said that the case was registered on the complaint of Swagat Kumar Nayak of Market Chhak, Daitapada Sahi, Puri, who accused Choudhary, Kumar, Patnaik and others of Yes World of duping him of around Rs 85,000. “During investigation it was found that ‘Yes World’ is running a huge Ponzi/ MLM/money circulation scheme in the name of crypto coin/token. This company does not have any substantive/matching business/activity on the ground but depend only on pyramid Ponzi scheme by adding more and more numbers of people below them (known as downline members) by tempting/fooling them with very high returns in a very short time,” it said.
This scheme/scam has around 2.5 lakh members mainly in the states like Punjab, Rajasthan, Odisha, West Bengal, Haryana, Gujarat, Bihar and Jharkhand. More than 8000 members/investors in Odisha – Bhubaneswar, Khurda, Bhadrak, Kendrapada, Jagatsinghpur, Keonjhar and Nayagarh – alone have invested money in this scheme.
In its website and social media accounts it, however, claims to be an ‘Innovative Climate Tech Company which creates solutions to help business and consumers combat climate change’.
Further investigation revealed that Yes World is not authorised by RBI or any other authorities to collect deposits and though it claims to be registered in Singapore, it business/activity is targeted/limited to India.
>> Chaudhary , who has done BTech from NIIT-Jaipur, is also the director of numerous suspected shell companies and he and some other up-line members used to conduct daily Zoom meetings to attract/influence members.
>> Patnaik and Basant Kumar Pradhan of Odisha had conducted many physical meetings in Bhubaneswar and Puri to attract/ influence new members/investors. Chaudhary had also travelled to Odisha too in order to promote the scheme.
>> Yes World used fancy hotels, motivational speakers, music, lunch/dinner to conducts publicity programmes to increase its membership. They also run several YouTube channels for publicity and tutoring the new members. Like any other MLM/Ponzi scheme, members initially do get some monetary benefits which tempt them to add more and more members under them.
The EOW added that the total money involved in Yes World is estimated to be more than Rs 200 crore.
In August, the state agency had claimed to have unearthed one of the largest cryptocurrency-based Ponzi schemes involving Rs 1,000 crore and two lakh investors.
