Bhubaneswar: The Bureau of Immigration under Union Home Ministry has issued a look out circular (LOC) against Chinese national Guanhua Wang, one of the main accused in an online Ponzi scam.
“The LOC was issued on the request of the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police,” an official statement said, adding that a case has been registered under Sections 419/420/467/468/471/120-B of IPC, 66-C & 66-D IT Act and Section 6 OPID Act.
Guanhua (40) is wanted in a huge pan-India online Ponzi scam, involving fraud and siphoning of hundreds of crores rupees out of India using a complex network of mule bank accounts, shell companies and crypto-traders, an EOW release said on Monday.
A resident China’s Hangzhou city, he has formed a company called Bettec Technologies Private Limited in 2019 based in Dickenson Road, Bengaluru. He also controls at least two other Bengaluru-based companies — Gamecamp Solutions Private limited and Byrontec Technologies Private Limited — through his mule directors.
During initial investigation, the EOW found that the accused had siphoned more than Rs 100 crore through his company. It has frozen around Rs 70 lakh from his company’s accounts in 14 different banks. These bank accounts were linked to Apps like Dice, Quickwrummy, Fly Aviator, Weonlinepro Three, MVP trader, Ft11, UNO, Forex Dana, Live 22 cash, Aviator X, City5, Homer Alexander etc. Together these apps had 1.56 crore + downloads.
The Financial Intelligence Unit has been requested to provide details of its other accounts. The total transactions in the above suspected bank accounts are of more than Rs 1,000 crore.
The release further said that Guanhua had been running this scam from China with the help of many India based associates after visiting India, mainly Bengaluru, six times in 2019 and 2020. His Indian associates are managing the mule bank accounts, shell companies and crypto-traders, WhatsApp/Telegram group tutors and also running advertising using the morphed photos of celebrities.
To lure the investors, these scammers used the morphed photographs of big celebrities like Amitabh Bachhan, Mukesh Ambani, Ratan Tata, Sachin Tendukar, Technical Guruji (YouTuber), among others. Logo of big companies like Tata was also used to mislead/ impress people on various social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube. Earlier, it was found that an App “Join trade- Financial growth” used morphed Pictures of leading Bollywood actors like Akshay Kumar and Manish Paul.
It was also found that some social media influencers also promoted these apps/scheme and TV stars/small celebrities were found endorsing their advice related to making quick money through these online Ponzi apps.
During the last one year, EOW Odisha has found that at least in three cases including the above case of cyber-financial cases involving frauds of hundreds of crore rupees being run by Chinese nationals. Most of the victims are from lower middle class, including many students, who wanted to become rich in a very short span of time using these shortcuts, the release further said.
1. EOW Case No.09/2022- Illegal Loan Apps case- Two Chinese
Liu Yi
2. EOW Case No.13/2022- (Illegal Loan Apps case)- three Chinese
Shen Zhenhua
Quan Hongwei
Yang Haiying
Look out circulars have been issued in all such cases. Incidentally all of them had their office/linkages in Bengaluru.
This apart, an initial probe into a recent case of siphoning of Rs 14 crore by QR code manipulation suggested that entire conspiracy was being run from China, it added.
