BHUBANESWAR: An executive of a ponzi firm was arrested by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Crime Branch for allegedly cheating a depositor on the promise of providing him Rs 50.57 lakh return in three months against an investment of Rs 2.13 lakh.
Mahamanya Jena of Sahadevkhunta in Balasore had lodged a complaint with the EOW alleging one Nilesh Kar lured him to invest money in the Cloud Fut website/application. Jena invested the money between January and March this year but Cloud Fut’s website abruptly stopped working and he was unable to withdraw the amount.
During the investigation, EOW officers found Cloud Fut claimed to the investors that it was into the cryptocurrency mining business. However, the firm was actually running ponzi/multi-level marketing schemes.
A person identified as Richard Purcell claimed that he was heading Cloud Fut which was based out of United States. Videos featuring Purcell were also uploaded on the firm’s website to promote it.
The company produced fake certificates of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to win the trust of the investors and even claimed that the Centre had executed a 10-year agreement with it to carry out cryptocurrency mining business.
Cloud Fut is suspected to have cheated more than 80,000 investors across the country on the promise of multiplying their money in a very short span of time. In Odisha, at least 200 investors from Balasore district have been duped by the company.
It offered investors huge bonus/commissions for introducing new members. The Ponzi schemes ranged from only Rs 665 to lakhs. Initially, the investors received returns but later they failed to even withdraw the invested amount.