The Rupnagar Police on Thursday unearthed a multi-crorePonzi scheme investment racket being operated via an online platform, under thename of Espian Global, with the arrest of five persons. Espian Global— a proxyof an online gaming website ESPN GLOBAL offers weekly four-fold high returnsof the money invested besides foreign trips to lure innocent people.
The arrestedpersons have been identified as Ikshit, a resident of Sirsa in Haryana, Ankitof Bhiwani Haryana, Rakesh Kumar of Zirakpur in SAS Nagar, Gurpreet Singh andSachinpreet Sindhu, both residents of Mohali in SAS Nagar. The Police have alsorecovered Rs 8.2 lakhs from their possession.
Director-Generalof Police (DGP) Punjab Dinkar Gupta said that following a complaint from onesuch investor, who claimed to have invested around Rs 16 lakhs and got nothingin return, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Rupnagar Akhil Chaudharydirected Superintendent of Police (SP Headquarters) Ankur Gupta to immediatelyregister the FIR and start investigations into the case.
During the investigations,DGP Dinkar Gupta said that the Police have managed to trace the bank accountsbased in Mumbai, in which cash transfers were made and during scrutiny ofstatements of these accounts it has been found that the people across Indiahave made investments amounting in crores on this platform.
The DGP alsoappealed to the people to be aware of such online schemes and don’t investwithout proper verification of any scheme and agents dealing with such schemes.
Modus Operandi
SSP Rupnagar Akhil Chaudhary, further briefing about howthe company was luring investors, said that the company offers three investmentslots including Rs 4.82 lakhs, Rs 7 lakhs, and Rs 19.40 lakhs, and when anyoneinvests in one of the slots, Electronic Transaction Purchase (EPT) wasgenerated and Indian currency is converted into EPTs and corresponding dollars,based on which weekly returns are promised. One EPT equals one Dollar.
To lure investorsto invest in the company, fraudsters have also organized special Seminars, saidSSP Chaudhary adding that it is a hierarchical system in which there are 13ranks and as one person gets more customers to invest in such schemes, his rankimproves in this system.
Meanwhile, the FIRno 76 dated May 14, 2021, has been registered under sections 406 and 420 of theIndian Penal Code (IPC), sections 4, 5, and 6 of the Prize Chit and MoneyCirculation (Banning ) Act and section 76 of the Chit Fund Act at Morinda CityPolice Station.