Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Bhubaneswar, has frozen an amount of Rs.53.48 lakh in 7 accounts at YES Bank and ICICI Bank in connection with an online Ponzi case.
Earlier one accused, identified as Nilesh Kar, was arrested from Balasore in this case registered on the allegation of Mahamanya Jena of Sahadebkhunta, Balasore, who was allegedly lured by the former to invest in ‘Cloud-Fut, a firm running ponzi/multi-level marketing schemes while claiming to be the cryptocurrency mining business, between January to March. He was promised Rs 50.57 lakh return in three months against an investment of Rs 2.13 lakh. He, however, was unable to withdraw the amount as the website abruptly stopped working, an EOW release said.
A person identified as Richard Purcell claimed that he was heading Cloud Fut which was based out of United States. Videos featuring Purcell were also uploaded on the firm’s website to promote it. The company produced fake certificates of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to win the trust of the investors and even claimed that the Centre had executed a 10-year agreement with it to carry out cryptocurrency mining business.
It offered investors huge bonus/commissions for introducing new members. The Ponzi schemes ranged from only Rs 665 to lakhs. Initially, the investors received returns but later they failed to even withdraw the invested amount.
Cloud Fut is suspected to have cheated more than 80,000 investors across the country on the promise of multiplying their money in a very short span of time. In Odisha, at least 200 investors from Balasore district have been duped by the company.
Further investigation is on to find out the mastermind and top bosses of this scam, the release added.
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