By Biswanath Dash
BHUBANESWAR: EOW Odisha, has arrested one S. Chitravel (age-31), MBA, India Head of the Chinese scam from Aviyur near Madurai, Tamil Nadu in mega online Chinese earning App/ Online Ponzi scam. He was produced before local court in Tamil Nadu and was brought to Odisha and produced before OPID Court Cuttack on 16.08.2023. The OPID court granted 5 days police remand of the accused. This refers to EOW Case No.19/2023 (Previous Press notes attached).The mastermind of this scam is one Guanhua Wang, age-40 of Hangzhou,China.
He along with two other Chinese nationals (one male and one female)came to India in 2019 and stayed in Bangalore for few months. They created at least 3 Shell companies based in Bangalore to run different Cyber-financial scams.
In one of such company, namely in “Bettec Technologies Private Limited”Chitravel was made director. During Covid time the trio went back to China but continued running the scam through Chitravel and some other such hired directors and facilitators. Chitravel used to get Rs.1 lakh per month to run the illegal scam in India. Earlier, these Chinese people were running illegal digital Loan Apps.
However after many people committed suicides being trapped in loan Apps, Law Enforcement Agencies started crackdown against Chinese Loan Apps and Government banned many such loan apps.
Chitravel used to supervise/manage the gang who used to threaten/ abuse and send the morphed porn pictures ofloan victims and their family members/ friends/contacts. After banning of loan apps they started running Earning Apps (kind of Online Ponzi scheme with a promise of doubling/ tripling money in a very short time but ultimately duping the huge amounts from poor investors), online bettingand other App based cyber-financial frauds. They were using the morphed photos of celebrities like Amitabh Bachhan, Mukesh Ambani, Ratan Tata, SachinTendukar, Technical Guruji ( famous You Tuber), Urfi Javed etc. in their online Adsto lure the new investors/ victims.
However this time they were more careful. They developed their software/Apps in China but got it registered/ uploaded from India so that it can be maskedas an Indian product/App.Money is being siphoned out of India in Thousands of Crores to Chinathrough these scams. They generally use following method to route money– Use of multiple layers of mule bank accounts at lower level.- Followed by current bank accounts of shell companies/ hired firms.- Finally Crypto traders and some dubious export-import firms are used tosiphon money out of India.- In some cases, small amount have also been withdrawn in cash in Dubai.EOW, in this case, has till date frozen more than Rs.2.66 in various bankaccounts.
This refers to EOW Case No.19/2023 U/S U/S 419/420/467/468/471/120-BIPC, Sec. 66-C & 66-D IT Act/ Sec. 6 OPID Act related to a huge pan-India online Ponzi scam involving fraud and siphoning of hundreds of crores rupees out of India using a complex network of mule bank accounts, shell companies/ firms andCrypto-traders. Guanhua Wang, age-40, is a resident of Flat No.202, number-199, Wensen Road, City- Hangzhou, District- Xihu, state- Zhenjiang of China. He formed acompany called “Bettec Technologies Private Limited” in 2019 based in Dickenson road, Bangalore, India. He also controls at least two other Bangalore based companies through his mule directors-Gamecamp Solutions Private limited.Byrontec Technologies Private Limited.
He visited India 6 times in 2019 and 2020 mainly Bangalore. After that heis working/ running this scam from China with the help of many India based associates who look after the managing/ arranging of mule bank accounts, shellcompanies/ firm and Crypto-traders, whatsapp/ telegram group tutors/administrators and also running Ads using the morphed photos of celebrities. Initial investigations suggest siphoning of more than 100 crores by his company using above methods. EOW has frozen around 70 Lakh from his company’s account. FIU (Financial Intelligence Unit) has been requested to provide details of its other accounts.In last one year, EOW Odisha has found that at least in 3 cases (including current case) of Cyber-financial cases involving frauds of hundreds of crore rupeesbeing run by Chinese national. LOC has been issued in all such cases. Incidentally all of them had their office/ linkages in Bangalore.
