BHUBANESWAR: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Crime Branch arrested a Rajasthan native, Sandeep Choudhary (40), for allegedly duping investors of Rs 200 crore across the country through his ponzi firm, ‘Yes World’.
Investigation has revealed Yes World claimed to provide solutions to business establishments for combating climate change but was actually running ponzi schemes by luring depositors to invest in cryptocurrencies/tokens. Choudhary is a native of Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu district and the agency had registered a case against him in October this year after receiving a complaint from one Swagat Kumar Nayak of Puri.
As Choudhary was absconding, the Bureau of Immigration (BOI) had issued a look out circular against him on EOW’s request. He was detained by BOI at Jaipur airport on Wednesday while trying to flee to Dubai.A team of EOW then went to Jaipur and arrested Choudhary. He was brought to Odisha and produced before OPID Court in Cuttack. The agency also arrested two up-line members of the ponzi firm - Basant Pradhan and Manoj Patnaik from the state capital on Thursday.
In his complaint, Nayak had alleged that Choudhary, Pradhan and Patnaik had cheated him of Rs 85,000. The accused lured the investors on the promise of providing high returns in a short time, said EOW.
There are more than 8,000 members of Yes World from Odisha and they are mainly natives of Khurda, Bhubaneswar, Bhadrak, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Keonjhar and Nayagarh. The firm has around 2.5 lakh members in various parts of the country like Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat. It claims to be registered in Singapore but its illesgal activities are limited to India.
Choudhary, who had completed his BTech from NIIT in Jaipur, used his photographs with various celebrities to influence the new members investing in his company. “Like any scheme floated by a ponzi firm, members of Yes World initially received some monetary benefits. The investors were promised high returns on their investments and if they added new members under them,” said an EOW officer.