EOW arrests director of a shell company involved in betting/online ponzi case

Bhubaneswar: EOW has arrested one Naveen Poriwar from Udaipur in Rajasthan. He is the director of a shell company. This company was utilized to channelize the ill-gotten money of this scam.

The EOW could trace around Rs 11.74 Crore were routed using this company. He is also director of number of other companies which are also shell companies and suspected to be used to channelize the crime proceeds of some other Cyber-crimes.

Interestingly, the arrested director Naveen Poriwar is a resident of Udaipur, Rajsthan but all his
companies are based/ registered in Kerala. He was produced before local court of Udaipur, Rajasthan and is being brought to Odisha.

1. Earlier in this case, Look Out Circular was issued against Md Saif, Dubai based operator/ promoter of this scam.
2. In this case initially two directors of Kolkata based shell companies M/s Hakim & Rustam Fabrics Pvt. Ltd. Were arrested.
3. FIR was registered on the complaint of few (800+) duped investors of Ganjam district,
   Odisha.
4. They and Lakhs others (Pan India, across the states) had invested money in 18 football. com with a motive to earn quick money.
5. 18 football. com is a hybrid model of fraud where Ponzi scheme (Multi-level Marketing) is run online giving a name of football betting/ gaming APP.
6. It is a huge international scam running online from a website which has been registered in HONGKONG (China) and also operated from Dubai.
7. Investors are promised of giving lucrative benefits like 3% daily compound return on
   investment, recharge bonus, referral bonus, extra bonus on the earning of the
   downline members, salary bonus, daily withdrawal option etc.
8. Investors need to create an account with “18football.com” either by application or
   through offline referral link, and were being asked to bet money in some football matches as prescribed in website/ APP.
9. Investors were also provided with the so called foreigner “mentor” to assist them in betting.
10. These mentors used to communicate through telegram or Apps only.
11.  There were extra bonus/ commission for introducing/ recruiting new members.
12. In order to promote and to allure the innocent public, the fraudsters were also taking up the promotional activities like some social works, charity etc. in the rural areas and giving it huge publicity so that people will consider this scheme as a bonafide organization.
13. The fraudsters although initially paid the promised return for some few days to the
    investors, yet in the latter stage when the membership increased, stopped making
    any payment and closed the app “18 football. com”.
14. The Scammers used multiple shell companies/ firms and their directors to route the
    ill-gotten money. They also used mule accounts for multi-layering of money
    transaction to confuse the law enforcement agencies.
15. One of the companies was Kolkata based M/s Hakim & Rustam Fabrics Pvt. Ltd. of
    which two directors were arrested earlier. They had confessed to get small amount of
    commission to run this shell company.
16. However they used to get the order/ direction from one Md Sheikh Saif from Dubai.
    The fraud by 18football.com has got all India ramifications, and the fraud amount
    involved is suspected to be more than Rs.1000 Crore, out of which EOW has been able to
    trace transaction of approximately Rs. 446 Crores till now.
    Investigation of the case is continuing.