The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Odisha Crime Branch on Tuesday arrested a person for duping investors of nearly Rs 50 crore in a Ponzi scheme.
The accused was identified as Mohan Kumar Parida, a resident of Kandagardi under Chandbali Police limits of Bhadrak.The EOW in a press release said the accused was produced at the designated OPID Court in Cuttack today.
The EOW had registered a case following a written allegation from one Chitta Ranjan Palo of Kalinga Nagar, Bhubaneswar, against M/s Way to Add India Pvt. Ltd., and its managing director Mohan Kumar Parida and others.
In the complaint, Palo said that Parida and his associates had lured scores of investors into investing their money for high returns. The accused also promised 26 per cent interest on the invested money per month for 3 months, apart from bonus and commission under different schemes.
The company was operating its offices at Prachi Vihar, Palasuni and Rasulgarh.
Palo had deposited Rs 44.60 lakh in total and initially got the return of Rs 12,600. As Parida did not pay the money, Palo had filed a complaint against him.
Even investors were asked to persuade others to invest in the company with the promise of a 2 per cent bonus. The EOW investigation found that after collecting more than Rs.50 crore from 2,000 investors from various parts of Odisha the company abruptly closed the schemes.
According to the EOW, the company was initially providing online recharge services like mobile, DTH, air tickets, bus tickets and FMCG products. However, in 2020-23, Parida floated different schemes for investments.
The EOW said that the company was actually running a Ponzi scheme in a pyramidic-binary structure as the company was not authorised either by RBI or SEBI to take any public deposits.