Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Odisha Police has frozen Rs 1.22 crore from the bank accounts of a Ponzi App and sought removal of the App from Google Play store after it was found to have deceived people with an offer of instant profit against their investment.
The investigating agency came across an advertisement on the internet about the ‘Join trade’ App claiming to provide instant profit with minimal investment of money. The advertisements lured people to invest by morphing the pictures of Bollywood actors like Akshay Kumar and Manish Paul to mislead and instill trust in them, said EOW officials.
The EOW has frozen Rs 1.22 crore from the accounts of Ponzi App “Join Trade” and registered cases under sections 420/467/468/471/120 B IPC/ Sec 4,5 and 6 of Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, Odisha Protection of Interests of. Depositors (in Financial Establishments) Act, 2011 besides section 66-C & 66-D of Information Technology Act, they said.
During the investigation, it was found that the Ponzi App was having five accounts with total transactions of Rs 18.67 crore, of which three were maintained in the name of big firms and companies based in Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Delhi.
It was further observed that all the above noted mule accounts, which were opened in the name of individuals and companies, were maintained mainly in YES Bank , ICICI Bank , HDFC Bank and IDFC First Bank, EOW officials informed.
The App claims to be a professional financial trading and wealth management platform with different investment schemes with minimal deposit of Rs 100. The App Join trade is downloadable in Google Play store and has more than 1 lakh downloads.
Further inquiry revealed that the accounts were operated by the fraudsters mostly through internet banking. Layering was used for transacting the ill-gotten money by transferring the bulk credit amount to further unknown accounts maintained in the name of firms, companies and individuals, the EOW added.