6 held for ponzi scheme fraud, duping investors of ₹5 crore

LUCKNOW :The state police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW), on Tuesday, arrested six people from Sonebhadra district for duping hundreds of gullible people of ₹5 core by floating multiple firms and luring them through different ponzi schemes.

Director General (DG) of EOW, RP Singh said those arrested were identified as Amresh Das, Pankaj, Krishna Kant Gupta, Shyam Lal, Vijay Narayan and Lalji Prasad Kushwaha. He said the EOW Varanasi team arrested the six accused in Sonebhadra after investigating the case for over three years following registration of FIR in the matter in 2015.

Singh said the accused floated the company ‘Real Agri Industrial Services Limited’ and its two other associate companies in Sonabhadra in 2009 and lured hundreds of people through different ponzi schemes. He explained that the ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investing scam promising high rates of return to investors. He said the ponzi scheme generates returns for older investors by acquiring new investors and luring more investors. The DG said the accused had vanished after collecting over ₹5 crore invested by the investors between March 27, 2012 and June 22, 2015. He said the investors had lodged an FIR against the company authorities for fraud, forgery and criminal breach of trust at Myorpur police station in Sonabhadra in the matter. He said the case was later transferred to the EOW as it needed special investigation to nail the culprits and the six accused after collecting proper evidence against them.