The Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Bhubaneswar has arrested two directors of a Private Company on the charges of duping investors to the tune of Rs 10 crore. The accused have been identified as Arpan Patel and Adyajyoti Nayak, Directors of M/s IAAVIC Pvt. Ltd.
Senior EOW officials said that the firm, which claimed to be a stock market advisory company, actually was running Ponzi schemes under share market garb on various social media platforms.
Both the directors were arrested from Mumbai on March 10 and are being brought to Bhubaneswar on the strength of transit remand for their production before the Designated Court under OPID Act, Cuttack. Both Patel and Nayak were arrested on the basis of a complaint filed by one Swadhin Kumar Sahoo of Binjharpur, Jajpur.
The complainant had alleged that the company’s directors had cheated him and other investors worth crores of rupees on the pretext of high returns on deposits/ investment in the stock market. The complainant had deposited Rs 15 lakh in the company’s account in installments starting from July 2021.
During the same period, the company represented through its accused directors had collected more than Rs 5 crore from as many as 400 investors of Odisha alone.
EOW probe found that the two accused launched a website, www.iaavic.com, during the year 2020-2021. Through the website, they uploaded and circulated videos through YouTube to attract the gullible depositors to invest in their company.
“On its YouTube video, M/s IAAVIC Pvt. Ltd. represented itself as a Stock Advisory Company and assured the investors to invest money in Stock Market and generate interest and promised to return 1% of the mutual profit on the invested amount on daily basis through the bank accounts of the investors,” EOW said in a statement.
According to EOW, one could join with an initial deposit of Rs 2,000 to Rs 1 lakh and there was auto pay-out and withdrawal provision. The Company also assured 15% direct income by promotion or joining new investors. It had also assured the investors to return the principal amount within 15 days of investment, on demand by the investors.
“The company neither is neither a Share Broker / Sub-Broker in any Stock Exchange in India nor authorized by Stock Market Regulating Agency like SEBI to carry on any such business. In the videos, documents like PAN Card, ISO Certificate, ROC Registration were displayed to gain the trust of the investors,” EOW release added.
The EOW has also found that the accused directors have committed similar frauds and duped a large number of investors in the states of Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra (Mumbai), Gujarat, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh.