EOW ODISHA ARRESTS INDIA HEAD OF A BANGALORE BASED MEGAONLINE CHINESE EARNING APP SCAM FROM TAMILNADU
Bureau,Odishabarta
Bhubaneswar:EOW Odisha, on 14.08.2023, arrested one S. Chitravel (age-31), MBA, India Head of the Chinese scam from Aviyur near Madurai, Tamilnadu in mega online
Chinese earning App/ Online Ponzi scam.
He was produced before local court in Tamilnadu 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 of loan 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 betting and other App based cyber-financial frauds.
They were using the morphed photos of celebrities like Amitabh Bachhan, Mukesh Ambani, Ratan Tata, Sachin Tendukar, Technical Guruji ( famous You Tuber), Urfi Javed etc. in their online Ads to 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 masked as an Indian product/App. Money is being siphoned out of India in Thousands of Crores to China through 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 to
siphon 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 bank
accounts.
Press Note (24.07.2023)
Look Out Circular against Chinese Citizen Guanhua Wang On the request of Economic Offence Wing Odisha, Bureau of Immigration (BOI), Ministry of Home affairs, Govt of India has issued LOC (Look Out Circular) against one Guanhua Wang, one of the main accused in mega online Ponzi scam.
This refers to EOW Case No.19/2023 U/S U/S 419/420/467/468/471/120-B IPC, 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 and
Crypto-traders. (Previous Press notes attached).
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 a company 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 he is working/ running this scam from China with the help of many India based associates who look after the managing/ arranging of mule bank accounts, shell companies/ 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 rupees being run by Chinese national. LOC has been issued in all such cases. Incidentally all of them had their office/ linkages in Bangalore.
1. EOW case no 09/2022- Illegal Loan Apps case- Two Chinese- Liu Yi Xin Peng
2. EOW case no 13/2022- (Illegal Loan Apps case)- three Chinese- Shen Zhenhua
Quan Hongwei Yang Haiying
Apart from this, in the recent case of siphoning of Rs 14 Crore by QR code manipulation, initial probe suggests that entire conspiracy was being run
from China.
PRESS NOTE (19.07.2023)
Crypto-Trade Alert During the investigation of EOW case19/2023 related to Online Ponzi Apps scam (using morphed photographs of celebrities like Amitabh Bachhan, Ratan Tata, Mukesh Ambani, Sachin Tendulkar etc./ previous Press Note attached) it
was noticed that some “Indian Whatsapp number” operated from China are being used to lure the Indian Crypto traders to sell the crypto currency worth hundreds of Crores rupees to the scammers sitting outside of India.
These China based scammers usually offer higher/ lucrative rates (compared to market rates) to lure Indian crypto traders.
These scammers generally meet them on various crypto exchange platforms and establish one to one link to make the deal.
However these scammers prefer P2P deal (Peer to Peer deal) instead of exchange based deal.
Mostly crypto traders (who are interested in better deal) are not aware of the criminal/ fraud antecedent of the other party.
Once the deal is struck, the scammers transfer the money from their India based shell companies/ enterprises’ bank account to crypto-traders and in turn Crypto-traders transfer the Cryto currencies to scammer’s account. Thus money is
siphoned out of India.
Advisory to Crypto-Traders
Crypto-traders must verify the antecedent of crypto buyers especially when the
amount is huge.
Crypto traders must check the details of company to check whether it’s a genuine
or shell company.
Generally these shell companies’ are newly created having very low authorized
and paid up capitals.
If they are offered higher/ better rate then prevailing market rate, it should be
seen suspiciously.
They should avoid P2P trade with suspicious buyers.
While chatting on WhatsApp they should insist on video chat so that they can see
the person on other side.
In case of any suspicion, they should report the matter to police/112/1930.
PRESS NOTE (05.07.2023))
EOW CONTINUES TO CRACKDOWN AGAINST ONLINE PONZI SCHEMES/ EARNING APPS BEING PROMOTED USING MORPHED PHOTOS OF CELEBRITIES
EOW Odisha has further frozen around Rs 75 lakh of 14 different bank accounts across India in a crackdown against the multiple online Ponzi ( MLM Schemes). Earlier EOW had frozen Rs 1.22 Crore in similar schemes/ Apps.
There are multiple illegal Apps and websites available on internet which misleads people by running advertisement to multiply money within few days/ months but after
few months these Apps close its operation/ Websites/ Apps.
These bank accounts were linked to Apps like Dice, Quickwrummy, Fly Aviator, Weonlinepro Three, MVP trader,Ft11,UNO, ForexDana, Live 22 cash, Aviator X, City5, Homer Alexander etc. Together these Apps had 1.56 Crore + downloads. This refers to EOW case no 19/2023.
In the fresh cases, it was found that these scammers are using the morphed photographs of big celebrities like Amitabh Bachhan, Mukesh Ambani, Ratan Tata, Sachin Tendukar, Technical Guruji ( famous You Tuber) etc.,
They also use the logo of big company like Tata to mislead/ impress people on various social media platform like instagram, YouTube etc.
Earlier it was found that an App “Join trade- Financial growth” was using the morphed Pictures of leading Bollywood actors like Akshay Kumar and Manish
Paul, in order to mislead and instill trust in the Public.
It was also found that there are some so called social media influencers who use their accounts to promote these Apps/ scheme. Some TV stars/ small celebrities were found to be endorsing such social media influencers and their advice related to making quick money through these Online Ponzi Apps.
Most of the victims are from lower middle class including many students wishing to become rich in a very short span of time using these shortcuts.
it came to surface that the amount can only be deposited through UPI’ID’s reflected in the APP which keeps changing constantly each minute and such ID’s were linked to savings Bank and current accounts maintained in the name of many shell companies / firms and individual persons.
The total transactions in the above suspected bank accounts are of more than 1000 Crores.
However it is suspected that these accounts/ networking are also used in other cyber/financial crimes related to Online Ponzi Schemes, Illegal digital Loan Apps, Courier Scam, Sextortion, Work from home scam, YouTube
liking scam, Rating scam etc.
It has been noticed that these money are routed through very complex multi layering of various mule accounts and finally money is transferred out of India using Crypto trade. Most of these scams are operated from or have links in Dubai, UAE.
Advisory to people-
1. Please don’t use these illegal earning Apps/ scheme. These Apps are created and operated by Cyber-Financial scammers. Even if you initially get
some money back ultimately you will lose huge money.
2. Please do not refer/ forward the links to your friend/ relatives. You might get some referral bonus but in the end, both you and your friends will lose huge amount of money.
3. It is quite possible that this money is being used in other cyber-crime and anti-national activities. Please stay away from such Apps/ schemes.
4. Never ever allow your bank accounts to be used/ controlled by others.
Advisory to Social media influencers-
1. Don’t promote such illegal earning Apps/ schemes directly or indirectly.
Advisory to Celebrities-
2. Don’t use your influence to promote such Apps/ schemes by recommending people to such social media influencers who promotes these illegal Apps/ schemes.
