Mumbai EOW to interrogate Russian ponzi players

A police team to head to Guwahati to grill Alexei Muratov among six accused arrested by Assam police

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Mumbai is likely to take charge of the Russian illegal investment scheme players arrested in Assam and interrogate them. A senior police official in Guwahati told Business Standard on phone said, “The Mumbai police have contacted us.

A team is coming here soon.” The Assam police arrested six senior members of the Russian financial scheme MMMIndia.in last month following complaints that they are running a illegal money circulation scheme.

On Monday, the EOW registered a case of registered a cheating and criminal conspiracy case against MMM for allegedly duping more than 70,000 people of nearly Rs 2,000 crore.

Among the arrested are three Russian nationals including Alexei Muratov, who calls himself the India representative of the scheme’s mastermind Sergei Mavrodi. Mavrodi had duped millions of Russians in the early 1990s  by floating a similar scheme.

After spending time in jail, he returned in 2012 to float a new internet-based scheme, which has become popular in several countries such as India, Indonesia and Thailand. Financial sector regulators and governments are wondering how to rein in this scheme which says “it is neither an investment scheme nor a company nor a bank.”

Among the Indians, Mumbai-based Dinesh Kotian is a key figure in the scheme who was arrested during a campaign seminar in Guwahati. The six are booked under Section 45 of Prize Chit and Money Circulation Scheme (Banning) Act, 1978, and Sections 120 B, 406 and 420 IPC. They were sent to jail after their five-day police remand ended on Sunday.

“All six are under judicial custoday. We are also investigating. We are trying to understand their structure. Investigation is progressing in the right direction,” the senior police official said.  

Meanwhile, Muratov and the arrested who had been moved to a hospital since they refused to take food, continued to post video messages thumbing nose on the system.

“We are only helping people. We have not done anything wrong. Longlive MMM,” Muratov was seen shouting while pumping his fist in the air in one of those messages. It is not clear how people under judicial custody are able to shoot videos and post them on websites.

The Guwahati police did not comment on further details about the probe.

According to news reports, the FIR filed by EOW names more than 17 people, including five foreigners, as accused. While the foreigners, all Russian nationals, include promoters Sergey Mavrodi, Alexei Muratov, Michel Glukhov and Kilin Adery, the other accused are Indian nationals.