HYDERABAD: The Economic Offences Wing of Cyberabad police on Monday busted a multi-crore investment fraud orchestrated by Chinese nationals. They allegedly cheated over 20,000 citizens across the country to the tune of Rs 50 crore. Three persons, who worked for them, have been arrested, and deposits valued at Rs 3 crore in 10 bank accounts, and other incriminating documents have been seized. The arrested persons have been identified as Uday Pratap, Nitesh Kumar Kothari and Rajesh Sharma.
Many others involved in the fraud, including two Chinese nationals Zhang Hongwei alias Peter, and Peng Guowei alias Javie, are absconding, said Cyberabad police commissioner VC Sajjanar. The accused persons promised returns up to 11 per cent per day and four times the investment within a 90-day period. They coaxed victims into investing in Shared Bike and Sharing Economy schemes via www.ciciseo.com, popularly known as Shared BK App.
“We will seek help from premier agencies like the RBI Financial Intelligence Unit, Intelligence Bureau and other enforcement wings to dig deep into the case,” Sajjanar said.Police said that in 2016, one of the accused Uday Pratap was working for China-based Top1Mobi Technology Company Ltd., which at the time had no presence in India. Its Business Lead for India, Javie, appointed him as a consultant for Telecom Value Added and Advertising Services in the country. Both of them worked together for four years, and later acquired Mobicentric Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Uday was made an authorised signatory for Mobicentric Technologies Pvt. Ltd and others.
Later, these companies were acquired by Hong Kong-based companies, and Javie was their director. In 2020, Javie hired Peter, the owner of Panda Overseas (Asia) Ltd., which is said to have acquired Flash Wave. Police said the accused had launched a Shared Bike app, and began cheating people by contacting them on Skype and WhatsApp. On verification with the Registrar of Companies (RoC), police found that the companies were fake. All of them were registered with RoCs at Delhi, Kanpur, Pune and Bengaluru.
Modus operandi
Police said that the accused used WhatsApp groups across the country to circulate information about Shared BK and Sharing Economy. They widely invited investments in three schemes offering different returns.People shared their personal information and bank account details, and became members of the scheme. The payment was made through the payemnet gateway, Razorpay.
The returns were reflected in the withdrawal/pending payment options, and credited to depositors’ bank accounts. However, the app stopped working in January, 2020, and has been non-functional since.It was found that the money paid by the depositors were credited to the bank accounts of fraudulent Indian companies registered with Razorpay through Chinese websites.
Razorpay officials summoned by cops
As all these companies made transactions via Razorpay payment gateway, Cyberabad CP VC Sajjanar said they have summoned officials of the company for more details on their mode of functioning. They will be questioned over the guidelines followed to identity merchants. They will also be asked about the volume of remittances to and from China through the platform
A tactful lot
With the Central government’s crackdown on Chinese apps and websites, Chinese nationals are coming up with novel ways to trap citizens. Their frauds are usually operated for a short period of time, and the fraudsters shift to other modes of cheating very quickly. Initially, they had targeted cryptotraders, and then moved on to online gaming and betting. Later, they began cheating people through web links shared personally. The most recent category of Chinese frauds was that of instant loan apps. But now, it appears that the Chinese have resorted to investment scams to dupe many in the country. “Not only are they duping people of money, but they are tricking locals into working for them, said Cyberabad CP VC Sajjanar