The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Odisha Police detained the Indian head of a Chinese earning App implicated in an online Ponzi scheme.

 

S Chitravel, 31, was apprehended at Aviyur, near Madurai, Tamil Nadu, according to the EOW. He was transported to Odisha and appeared before the OPID Court in Cuttack on August 16, where he was held for five days on police remand.

 

 

 

The mastermind of this scheme, according to the EOW, is Guanhua Wang, 40, of Hangzhou, China. He arrived in India in 2019 with two other Chinese nationals (one male and one female) and resided in Bangalore for a few months. They set up at least three shell businesses in Bangalore to carry out various cyber-financial frauds.

 

Chitravel was named director of one such business, namely 'Bettec Technologies Private Limited'. During Covid's tenure, the three returned to China but continued to execute the fraud through Chitravel and other hired directors and facilitators. According to the EOW, Chitravel used to conduct the illicit scheme in India.

 

Previously, these Chinese individuals operated unlawful digital loan Apps. However, when a number of individuals committed suicide as a result of being stuck in debts, law enforcement agencies began a crackdown on Chinese lending applications, and the government outlawed several of them.

 

The EOW stated that Chitravel used to manage the group that used to threaten and email modified pornographic images of loan victims and their family members.

 

After the lending apps were outlawed, they began operating income Apps (a type of online Ponzi scam that promises to double/triple money in a very short period of time), online betting, and other Apps.

 

During the inquiry, the EOW discovered that they were utilizing modified photographs of celebrities in their web adverts to attract new investors. To escape prosecution, they created software in China but had it uploaded from India so that it could be disguised as an Indian program.

 

"Through these scams, money is being siphoned out of India... and into China."

 

To siphon money out of India, they often employ numerous layers of mule bank accounts at the lowest level, followed by current bank accounts of shell companies, and eventually, crypto dealers and some questionable export-import organizations."