By Biswanath Dash
BHUBANESWAR: Economic Offences Wing, Bhubaneswar has arrested two accused namely Rustam Khan and Md. Hakim (Directors of a mule/shell company Hakim & Rustam Fabrics Private Limited, Kolkata) on 22.02.2023 from Shibpur, Howrah, West Bengal in EOW PSCase No.06 dt.17.02.2023 U/s 420/467/468/471/120-B IPC r/w Sec.4/5/6 of PCMCs(Banning) Act & Sec.6 of OPID Act/ Sec.66 (D) of IT Act. After arrest, both the accused persons were produced before the Hon’ble Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Howrah, on22.02.2023 and were brought on the strength of 05 days transit remand for their productionbefore the Hon’ble Designated Court under OPID, Berhampur. FIR was registered on the complaint of few (800+) duped investors of Ganjam district.
They and Lakhs others (Pan India, across the states) had invested money in 18football.com with a motive to earn quick money. 18football.com is a hybrid model of fraud where Ponzi scheme (Multi-level Marketing) is run online giving a name of football betting/ gaming APP. Investors are promised of giving lucrative benefits like 3% daily compound return on investment, recharge bonus, referral bonus, extra bonus on the earning of the downline members, salary bonus, daily withdrawal option etc. Investors need to create an account with “18football.com” either by application or through offline referral link, and were being asked to bet money in some football matches as prescribed in website/ APP. Investors were also provided with the so called foreigner “mentor” to assist them in betting.7. 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 taking up the promotional activities like some social works, charity etc. in the rural areas and giving it huge publicity so that people will consider this scheme as a bonafide organization. The fraudsters although initially paid the promised return for some few days to the investors, yet in the latter stage when the membership increased, stopped making any payment and closed the app“18football.com”. The Scammers used multiple shell companies/ firms and their directors to route the ill-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 FabricsPvt. Ltd. of which the two arrested fraudsters are the directors. They have confessed to get small amount of commission to run this shell company.However they used to get the order/ direction from one Md Sheikh Saififrom Dubai. Out of 150+ bank accounts involved in this racket, EOW have analyzed 17 accounts till date, out of which transaction of Rs.108 Crores have already been traced.
It is suspected that money involved in this scam may go beyond Rs.1000 Crores. It is a huge international scam running online from a website which has been registered in HONGKONG (China) and also operated from Dubai. EOW will involve other law enforcement agencies of central and other state governments and also Interpol to unearth the Scam. All are advised not to download such Apps/ Website and indulge in such online Betting Cum Ponzi activities.The investigation of the case is on.
