By Biswanath Dash
BHUBANESWAR: The fraud by 18football.com has got all India ramifications, and the fraud amount involved is suspected to be more than Rs.1000 Crore, out of which EOW has been able to trace transaction of approximately Rs. 446 Crores till now. Investigation of the case is continuing.
Sources said, the Economic Offence Wing of CID-CB of Odisha Police, have arrested one Naveen Poriwar from Udaipur, Rajasthan. He is the director of oneShell company named EDUDADDY INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES PRIVATELIMITED. This company was utilized to channelize the ill-gotten money of this scam. EOWcould trace around Rs 11.74 Crore were routed using this company.
He is also director of following companies which are also shell companies and suspected to be used to channelize thecrime proceeds of some other Cyber-crimes.SALINTECH SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS PRIVATELIMITEDFRUDOT TECHNOLOGIES PRIVATE LIMITEDGEMODOCH SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS PRIVATELIMITEDInterestingly, the arrested director Naveen Poriwar is a resident of Udaipur, Rajsthan but all hiscompanies are based/ registered in Kerala.He was produced before local court of Udaipur, Rajasthan and is being brought to Odisha.
Earlier in this case, Look Out Circular was issued against Md Saif, Dubai based operator/ promoter of this scam. In this case initially two directors of Kolkata based shell companies M/s Hakim &Rustam Fabrics Pvt. Ltd. Were arrested. FIR was registered on the complaint of few (800+) duped investors of Ganjam district,Odisha.
They and Lakhs others (Pan India, across the states) had invested money in18football.com with a motive to earn quick money. 18football.com is a hybrid model of fraud where Ponzi scheme (Multi-levelMarketing) is run online giving a name of football betting/ gaming APP.7. It is a huge international scam running online from a website which has been registeredin HONGKONG (China) and also operated from Dubai.8. Investors are promised of giving lucrative benefits like 3% daily compound return oninvestment, recharge bonus, referral bonus, extra bonus on the earning of thedownline members, salary bonus, daily withdrawal option etc.9. Investors need to create an account with “18football.com” either by application orthrough offline referral link, and were being asked to bet money in some footballmatches as prescribed in website/ APP.
Investors were also provided with the so called foreigner “mentor” to assist them inbetting. These mentors used to communicate through telegram or Apps only. There were extra bonus/ commission for introducing/ recruiting new members. In order to promote and to allure the innocent public, the fraudsters were also takingup the promotional activities like some social works, charity etc. in the rural areasand giving it huge publicity so that people will consider this scheme as a bonafideorganization.
The fraudsters although initially paid the promised return for some few days to theinvestors, yet in the latter stage when the membership increased, stopped makingany payment and closed the app “18football.com”. The Scammers used multiple shell companies/ firms and their directors to route theill-gotten money. They also used mule accounts for multi-layering of money transaction to confuse the law enforcement agencies. One of the companies was Kolkata based M/s Hakim & Rustam Fabrics Pvt. Ltd of which two directors were arrested earlier. They had confessed to get small amount of commission to run this shell company. However they used to get the order/ direction from one Md Sheikh Saif from Dubai.
