Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offense Wing (EOW) of Odisha Crime Branch has busted a fake investment website by freezing 11 mule bank accounts related to illegal ponzi scheme/ website namely http://smsmvip.com / “Marathon Digital Holdings”. This website is operated from Hongkong and suspected to have duped thousands of investors across India, the EOW said.
During the Investigation of EOW Ps case No 10 dated 23.3.2023 u/s 420/467/468/471/120 B IPC/ Sec 4,5&6 of PCMCS Banning Act , 6 OPID Act and 66C & 66D of IT Act, the Investigating officer came through a fraudulent website namely http://www.smsmvip.com.
On opening of the website it shows the name “Marathon Digital Holdings”. The website claims to be investment site in which investors could earn additional income on daily basis by investing a minimum amount of Rs.1000/- and maximum up to Rs.2 Lakhs.
To lure/ trap the investor they give some instant amount without doing anything (like on initial investment of Rs.1000 the investors get Rs.150 back without doing anything). This website was created in USA and being operated from Hong Kong (China).
This fake/dubious website has a unique modus operandi in which an investor would be given a set of tasks i.e liking some videos on YouTube etc .Further, the investor is required to send screenshots relating to the completion of the task as proof for completion of the task to the tutor on the Telegram Chat. Thereupon, the investor is given the next set of tasks. For each task, the investor has to deposit a minimal amount of Rs 1000, which needs to be paid through an UPI ID reflected on the website.
It is pertinent to mention here that the UPI ID reflected on the website gets changed on intervals of few minutes.
During enquiry, it came to light that the UPI ID’s reflected in the website for payment towards investment were linked to Bank accounts maintained in the name of many shell companies, firms and mule accounts maintained in the name of individual persons.
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. ‘
In the said enquiry, statement of accounts of 11 accounts linked to this fraud website was analyzed and it came to the light that within a period of 3-4 months the accounts had total transactions of Rs 39.11 crores with a left over Balance of Rs 11.91 lakhs only, which was freezed by EOW.
Further, it was seen that the bulk amount from most of these accounts was transferred to 3 accounts maintained with HDFC Bank , in which the total transactions were more than 85 lakh out of which an amount of Rs.41.26 lakhs were subsequently withdrawn in Dubai.
The website is still active and defrauding thousands of investors. It is suspected that at least 3700 investors across India have already been duped by this website/scheme, the EOW said.
EOW Advisory:-
- Do not respond to unknown WhatsApp messages alluring you to earn additional income .
- These numbers generally show Non-Indian mobile numbers .
- The communication/ call is never made live, but through Telegram or WhatsApp chats .
- The website claims to give additional incomes through investment in crypto mining or liking websites/ videos etc and the website sends links for joining/ becoming member.
- The payment towards investment is always through UPI ID’swhich is reflected in the website and keeps changing constantly
- While making payment in the given UPI ID’s, security/ warning messages are sent by Banks.
- The payment UPI ID’S show names of various companies, firms and enterprises.
- Such fraudulent websites gain your trust through initial payments/ commissions on investment but within 2-3 months the withdrawal amount to the total amount is blocked.
