BHUBANESWAR: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Crime Branch arrested S Chitravel (31), director of a Bengaluru-based ponzi firm, for allegedly cheating investors in Odisha and other parts of the country to the tune of more than Rs 1,000 crore.
The accused was working with Bettec Technologies Private Limited which was reportedly set up by three Chinese nationals including, Guanhua Wang, in 2019. Chitravel was involved in forcibly collecting exorbitant sums from customers of various loan apps run by Wang and his two associates.
Chitravel used to supervise the miscreants who used to morph pictures of loanees, their family members, friends and acquaintances. They used to send the morphed pictures to the victims in an attempt to extort money from them.
However, the accused closed down the loan apps after law enforcement agencies in the country launched a crackdown against them. They later developed earning apps in China and got them registered in India to lure investors to deposit money on the promise of providing them higher returns.
The accused used the photographs of well-known Indian celebrities to win the confidence of investors. EOW’s investigation has revealed Wang also controls at least two other companies, Gamecamp Technologies Private Limited in Chennai and Byrontec Solutions Private Limited in Bengaluru, through mule directors.
Wang’s associates in India arranged mule bank accounts, cryptocurrency traders and set up shell companies to transfer the ill-gotten money to China. “Chitravel, a MBA degree holder, was working for the Chinese nationals for a monthly salary of Rs 1 lakh. He was arrested from Aviyur in Tamil Nadu,” said IG, EOW Jai Narayan Pankaj.
So far, the agency has frozen more than Rs 2.66 crore from various bank accounts in connection with the case. The Bureau of Immigration had earlier issued a lookout circular against Wang. He had visited India, mostly Bengaluru, six times between 2019 and 2020