BHUBANESWAR: Gurtej Singh Sidhu, accused of running a Rs 1,000 crore pan-India cryptocurrency-based ponzi scam, had received deposits from Non-Resident Indians in Canada, Dubai, Hungary and Nepal, a probe by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) suggests.
“Apart from collecting money from investors in various states of the country, he had received investment from NRIs too. As the scam is massive, we will request the court to grant further remand of Gurtej,” said EOW IG, Jai Narayan Pankaj.
In fact, Gurtej was planning to flee to Hungary after he made a fortune out of the investment by members whose numbers ran into 2 lakh across the country. His WhatsApp chats suggested he was most likely planning to flee to Hungary or Dubai to evade arrest.
A native of Faridkot in Punjab, Gurtej was a Class X dropout. Before he joined Solar Techno Alliance (STA), he worked as an insurance agent. That is where he developed contacts across the country and used them during his stint at the Ponzi firm. He then quickly climbed to the top of STA’s pyramid scheme and grasped the firm’s Kohinoor leadership title.
The EOW is trying to ascertain where the prime accused stashed the ill-gotten money. Chances of him moving the cash overseas through the Hawala route are not ruled out.
The agency traced a few bank accounts of Gurtej most of which have negligible deposits. The investigators suspect Gurtej may have transferred the illegally acquired money to bank accounts of various state heads of the Ponzi firm and associates.
Hungarian national David Gez, Gurtej and three to four other natives of Punjab are the masterminds of various Ponzi schemes and cryptocurrency-based scams run by STA.