Ponzi scam: ED freezes dozen accounts in Noida containing over Rs.500 crores

The Enforcement Directorate on Friday registered a case of money laundering on the basis of FIR registered by Special Task Force (STF), Uttar Pradesh Police in the case of multi level marketing and ponzi scheme running at Noida.

A group of persons and companies have been found to be involved in cheating of approximately 6.5 lakh investors to the tune of Rs. 3700 crores in the name of promotion through likes on the URL's sent by them.

The investigation in the said case is being done expeditiously and as a result of that simultaneous searches at five premises located at Kanpur, Ghazibad and Noida belonging to offenders have been conducted by the Directorate of Enforcement, Lucknow Zonal Office today.

Modus operandi of the accused according to their business scheme as alleged were that through their web portal they promoted a scheme whereby liking the webpage which were fictitiously shown associated to International Social Media Groups like Google and Face Book the users will earn money.

The accused persons propagated a false story that the promotional WebPages linked on these International Social Media Portals pay Rs. 6 per likes out of which they pay Rs. 5 to the investment/ user.

The accused also promoted four systematic investment plans offering various incentives depending upon the investment made by the user.

The multilevel marketing and ponzi schemes were run by M/s Ablaze Info Solutions Private Ltd, M/s Social Trade India Pvt Ltd, M/s 3W Digital Pvt Ltd, M/s Intmaart India Pvt Ltd.

All these companies are brain child of one Anubhav Mittal, Ayushi Agarwal and others.

Preliminary enquiry under provisions of PMLA has revealed that incriminating documents relating to cheating of funds from public at large and documents pertaining to investments of cheated funds in valuable assets, have been secreted at various places.

The searches have resulted in recovery of incriminating documents revealing the offence of money laundering and possession of huge sum of money.

The documents recovered are likely to be useful in recovery of cheated funds as well as properties acquired out of proceeds of crime beyond the frozen amount of Rs 500.00 crore balance in the accounts of the company.

The Directorate has also asked for details of transaction from the related banks which were used by the accused persons.

The money trail will be investigated to further ascertain the investments and parking of the tainted money by the accused.

The Directorate will seek custodial investigation of the accused arrested by the (STF) and there accomplices. Further to secure the investments of the public provisional attachment of all moveable and immoveable properties which are proceeds of crime or acquired by means of tainted money will be attached under section 5 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.

The Directorate is also coordinating with the Income Tax Authority as well as Special Task Force (STF).

The Enforcement Directorate had earlier registered case against the company and the director Aubhav Mittal in the first week of February.