Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha police has arrested a man from Karnataka for allegedly cheating people through an online ponzi app.
The accused, identified as Krishnananda N, was nabbed from his native place in Karnataka. He has cheated people through GETSO Earning App.
The EOW was able to crack down the mobile App after a man namely Dibyajyoti Kar of Nayapalli in Bhubaneswar lodged a complaint against the App.
Dibyajyoti joined a WhatsApp group through a person identifying as manager of a company GETSO doing the business of crypto mining. He was induced to invest with the company for getting high returns like 6 per cent daily on the invested amount apart from daily withdrawal facility.
The complaint then created an account in the website of GETSO company through an upline referral link and deposited an amount of Rs.1.27 lakh from October to December 2022.
Subsequently, the GETSO WhatsApp group was closed and withdrawal requests were ignored. The company cheated Dibyajyoti and thousands of other investors across India. There would be more than hundred investors from Odisha alone, sources said.
During investigation, the EOW has so far traced a scam involving more than Rs.144 crore. The fraud company was running online money circulation by running ponzi schemes in the name of crypto mining and operating throughout India.
The amount of invested money and the number of investors will go up with the progress of investigation. Out of the invested amount, Rs.26 crores was found to have been transacted through the account of the arrested accused Krishnananda N., they said.
The officials informed that GETSO fraudulently claimed to be a Washington, USA-based company on its website/App. The mobile App is available in Google Play Store with more than 10,000 downloads. It used some YouTubers to promote the scheme-like Earning Guru Mj.
It claimed to be doing the crypto mining but actually was running a ponzi/ multi-level marketing online scam. On October 25, 2022, the company announced that it is withdrawing from the Indian market claiming high taxation from the Indian Government on cryptocurrency.
