BHUBANESWAR: Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Crime Branch on Monday arrested one of the officials of Vihaan Direct Selling (India) Private Limited, Prasant Kumar Mohanty of Patia, for allegedly duping investors to the tune of over Rs 1.2 crore in Odisha.
EOW had registered a case in September last year after 31 investors lodged a complaint with it alleging that a Hong Kong-based multi-level marketing company, QNet, and its franchise Vihaan had duped them.
They had accused Vihaan’s representatives - Chandan Kumar Mohalik, Sarat Parida, Devabrat Harichandan, Prasant Kumar Mohanty and others of running an illegal money circulation scheme on the pretext of direct selling multi-level marketing.
Mohalik, Parida and Harichandan were arrested in October last year while Mohanty was apprehended on Monday.“Investigation revealed that the accused had entered into a criminal conspiracy and had collected money from the investors on the pretext of providing them very high returns,” said an EOW officer.
However, the officials of Vihaan failed to provide the assured returns to the investors. The probe of the case is continuing, he added.Sources said that QNet limited, formerly known as Gold Quest and Quest Net, had implemented the methodology of direct selling through referral system.
However, it was running money circulation scheme in the guise of selling products.QNet, the main subsidiary of the Qi Group of Companies, had faced similar complaints from all over the country.