UP STF arrests ponzi scheme promoter from U'khand

The Uttar Pradesh Police's Special Task Force has arrested a promoter of a private firm in connection with a ponzi scheme in which several people were duped of crores of rupees, officials said Tuesday.

Vivek Gangwar, a promoter of Noida-based Ablaze Info Solutions, was picked up Monday by the STF from his temporary accommodation in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, the officials said.

He is named in over a dozen cases at Noida and faces charges of criminal conspiracy, fraud and forgery of documents, they said, adding that he has also been booked under the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act.

Working on a tip-off about his presence in Dehradun, a cyber crime team of the Noida unit of the STF raided his house in Rajeshwar Nagar and arrested him, an STF official said.

During probe, he told investigators that he had connived with his partners at Ablaze Info Solutions to get benefit of crores of rupees via its multi-level marketing scheme, according to the officials.

The company's owner and the kingpin of the ponzi scheme, Anubhav Mittal, was arrested three years ago. Eight other promoters of the firm are behind bars, while efforts are underway to nab the others involved, the official said.

Mittal, the agency had said, had collected several thousand crore of rupees from the customers of his company by false inducements and later siphoned off the same by means of generating false or bogus bills/invoices with the assistance of various persons who are under scrutiny."