Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Crime Branch has arrested one Naveen Poriwar from Udaipur in Rajsthan. He is the director of a shell company – EDUDADDY INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES PRIVATE LIMITED. This company was utilized to channelize the ill-gotten money of the 18Football.com online ponzi scam.
EOW could trace around Rs 11.74 crore were routed using this company. He is also director of following companies which are also shell companies and suspected to be used to channelize the crime proceeds of some other cyber-crimes:
SALINTECH SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS PRIVATE LIMITED
FRUDOT TECHNOLOGIES PRIVATE LIMITED
GEMODOCH SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS PRIVATE LIMITED
“Interestingly, Poriwar is a resident of Udaipur, Rajsthan but all his companies are based/registered in Kerala. He was produced before local court of Udaipur, Rajasthan and is being brought to Odisha,” an EOW official said.
Earlier in this case, a look out circular was issued against Md Saif, Dubai based operator of the scam and two directors of Kolkata based shell companies M/s Hakim & Rustam Fabrics Pvt. Ltd. were arrested, the official added.
At least 800 persons from Ganjam district have been duped by the fraudsters involved in the scam. They and Lakhs others (Pan India, across the states) had invested money in 18football.com with a motive to earn quick money.
18football.com is a hybrid model of fraud where Ponzi scheme (Multi-level Marketing) is run online giving a name of football betting/ gaming APP. It is a huge international scam running online from a website which has been registered in HONGKONG (China) and also operated from Dubai.
Investors are promised of giving lucrative benefits like 3% daily compound return on investment, recharge bonus, referral bonus, extra bonus on the earning of the downline members, salary bonus, daily withdrawal option etc.
Investors need to create an account with “18football.com” either by application or through offline referral link, and were being asked to bet money in some football matches as prescribed in website/ APP.
Investors were also provided with the so called foreigner “mentor” to assist them in betting. These mentors used to communicate through telegram or Apps only.
There were extra bonus/ commission for introducing/ recruiting new members. In order to promote and to allure the innocent public, the fraudsters were also taking up the promotional activities like some social works, charity etc. in the rural areas and giving it huge publicity so that people will consider this scheme as a bonafide organization.
The fraudsters although initially paid the promised return for some few days to the investors, yet in the latter stage when the membership increased, stopped making any payment and closed the app “18football.com”.
The Scammers used multiple shell companies/ firms and their directors to route the ill-gotten money. They also used mule accounts for multi-layering of money transaction to confuse the law enforcement agencies.
One of the companies was Kolkata based M/s Hakim & Rustam Fabrics Pvt. Ltd. of which two directors were arrested earlier. They had confessed to get small amount of commission to run this shell company. However they used to get the order/ direction from one Md Sheikh Saif from Dubai.
“The fraud by 18football.com has got all India ramifications, and the fraud amount involved is suspected to be more than Rs 1000 Crore, out of which EOW has been able to trace transaction of approximately Rs 446 Crores till now. Investigation of the case is continuing,” the EOW added.
