By Biswanath Dash
BHUBANESWAR: In 2022 till date, Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police CID-CB has taken up cases involving many new facets of financial crime. EOW has registered 22 cases involving diversified areas of financial crimes covering from Cheating and forgery in Real estate, Income tax fraud, online/ cyber frauds, job frauds to fake Digital Loan Apps operated through shell companies, mule accounts and virtual/cloud based numbers.
In 2022, in 22 cases, EOW detected fraud involving approximately more than Rs 100 Crores (figure will go upward as investigation progresses) and 60 fraudsters/accused persons were arrested from various states.
All these cases had extensive areas of operation from the interiors of India to places outside Indian territorial boundaries like China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Nepal, Srilanka etc.
EOW worked with various Law enforcement agencies of Central and other states like ED, Income tax, FIU (Financial Intelligence Unit), RBI, Intelligence Bureau, Bureau of immigration, CBI/ Interpol,CISF, various banks, GST authorities, Mumbai Police, Delhi Police, Kolkata Police, Bangalore police, Hyderabad Police, Rajasthan Police etc.
EOW was also in regular touch with Google, Facebook, Whatsapp, Go-Daddy etc in connection with investigation of some cases.
Not only our action saved many persons from frauds but also because of proactive, comprehensive, multi-agency action taken in Digital Loan App fraud saved many lives. It is reported that 108 people committed suicides getting trapped in cruel Loan app cases in India. Fortunately no one committed suicide in Odisha though there were many people who were victims of this fraud.
Important cases
1. Illegal digital lending Loan App cases (EOW PS case No 9 and 13/2022). The cases not only helped to break through the new means of financial crime involving cyber technology wherein the financial transactions were routed through various complicated layering to reach foreign lands ie China. Moreover, the registration of the above noted cases not only helped in deterring the occurrence of suicide/ harassment through loan Apps cases in Odisha but had such overwhelmingconsequence that it helped Ministry of finance/ Home Affairs & Reserve Bank of India to issue a National Advisory on illegal digital lending APPs running in the country . In this regard , ED also froze about 370 Crores of the shell company Yellow Tunes Technology which was headed by two persons namely Sushant & Rakshit who were arrested by EOW in case no 9/22.The accused were arrested from Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai.
2. Income tax TDS refund Fraudcase( EOW Case No 15/2022)- by forging documents in the name of non-existent / ghost entities by a chartered accountant. This case was well detected one in which the novel modus operandi used by the principal accused in forgingthe documents/ identity of other companies in filing TDS refund fraud was investigated well in time thereby preventing the loss of crores of Rs to the Govt Exchequer. In this case the main accused was arrested from Delhi.
3. Real estate/ Flat fraud by Odyssa Homes & Commercials Pvt. Ltd (EOW PS case No 19/2022), relating to cheating of about 42 investors to the tune of Rs.20 Crores by the Directors of M/s. on the pretext of providing them dispute free flats in its Apartment Project namely, ‘Ganapati Homes’ located in SampurMouza, Bhubaneswar . In this case the absconding principal accused and the Managing Director of the company Manoj Panda was arrested from Andhra Pradesh.
4. Hawala/ Cheating Case (EOW PS case No 3/22)- two hard-core fraudsters/ Criminal/ Hawala Karobari namely Rakesh Kumar Girija Shankar Pandey and Sarman Singh Tomar were arrested from Mumbai for cheating 2.02 Crores. In this Case, the accused Sarman Singh Tomaris said to have been running illegal Hawala Business in Mumbai and Rakesh is a Veteran fraudster/ Criminal/ Extortionist having numerous Criminal Cases against him in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.
5. Digital Revolution Technologies Fraud case- EOW arrested one Prince Kumar,Director of Digital Revolution Technologies Ltd for running Ponzi Schemes in multiple states including Odisha. Under the guise of “Digital Marketing” he had duped hundreds of investors across Odisha and other states by giving false assurances of high returns under its different schemes involving various digital/online products like fake desi version of YouTube, WhatsApp, Gmail, Amazon etc. The accused was arrested from Delhi.
6. Agricultural Equipment Subsidy Fraud cases ( EOW Case No 7, 8 & 20 of 2022)- in these cases dealers of agricultural equipment siphoned off subsidy by showing the sale of equipment on paper / account/ website portal without actually selling the equipment to farmers ( by giving nominal share to farmers) thereby causing loss to Governments of Crores of rupees.
7. India Post Payment Bank Mule accounts fraud- in this fraud hundreds of mule accounts were opened in the name of innocent villagers by using thousands of SIMs registered on other’s names. These accounts were used to run various kind of Cyber frauds like Job frauds, Sextortions, cyber-financial crimes, cyber loan frauds etc. The accused were arrested from Rajsthan.
8. Ponzi Scheme- accused were arrested from Gwalior ,Madhya Pradesh. In this case the Director of M/s Auroxa Deal Multitrade ( OPC) Private Limited was arrested for duping more than 500 investors for giving false assurance to provide various products and high returns under different schemes and thereby cheating people of more than 10 crores. The said company was running illegal money circulation in the guise of Direct Selling Multi Level Marketing ( MLM).
9. Cheating in the name of Scholarship scheme and Solar equipment- EOW detected successfully a multi-State scholarship and solar equipment fraud of Vastav India and arresting its Secretary and President from Ranchi Jharkhand. The case relates to cheating the public and parents on the pretext of selling/supplying LED bulbs in their solar awareness program and giving pre-matric scholarship to the students in their ‘Chuuloo -Aasman’ program to the tune of Rs.4 Cr. approx.
Honourable OPID Court ordered forfeiture/confiscation and selling of properties in following EOW cases
1.EOW PS case No 02/2018 relating to M/S Orissa Home Pvt Ltd
2. EOW PS Case No 23/2015 relating to M/S Ashirabad Multi Purpose Co-Operative Ltd
3. EOW PS case No 14/2015 relating to M/s Tresty Securities Ltd
4. EOW Ps case No09/2015 relating to M/S Sarala Realcon Pvt Ltd.
5. EOW PS case No 04/ 2018 relating to M/s Sai Gayatri Group of companies
