Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police on Saturday arrested another accused in a huge crypto-ponzi scam involving over Rs 200 crore from Bhubaneswar.
EOW said the case was registered on the complaint of a man from Puri who alleged that he has been cheated by Sandeep Choudhary, Basant Kumar, Manoj Kumar Patnaik and others of Yes World of around Rs.85,000/-.
During investigation, it was found that accused Sankar Sarkar along with his associates ran a web platform in the name of “Yes World” and in the banning of “Yes World” collected public deposits earning high returns in the cover of investment in crypto account.
The accused persons were running illegal money circulation schemes in the form of pyramid Ponzi scheme by adding more and more numbers of people below them (Known as down line members) by tempting/fooling them with very high returns in a very short time.
There are more than 8000 members/investors in Odisha alone who have invested money in this scheme. In Odisha, it is mainly spread in Bhubaneswar, Khordha, Bhadrak, Kendrapada, Jagatsinghpur, Kendujhar and Nayagada. This scheme/scam has around 2.5 lakh members (Pan India), mainly in the states like Punjab, Rajasthan, Odisha, West Bengal, Haryana, Gujrat, Bihar, Jharkhand etc. and total money involved (Pan India) in Yes World is estimated to be more than Rs 200 crores, the EOW said in a statement.
They used to arrange meetings and seminars both in physical or virtual mode for promotional activities and to add new members. The accused persons have created websites and mobile applications, and used WhatsApp groups to display fabricated returns and network growth.
Sankar Sankar in conspiracy with others induced investors and promoted the scheme by organizing meetings in various locations including Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. He collected large sums of deposits from gullible investors through bank accounts and cash. Investigation also disclosed that Rs.5 lakh has been transferred to the personal account of accused Sankar Sankar directly from the account of the investors.
Earlier, accused Sandeep Choudhury, Mastermind of this crime, was arrested and forwarded to court.
During investigation, one mobile handset of accused Sarkar has been seized. Further investigation is going on.