New Delhi, April 15 (IANS) A former employee of a cooperative society from Rajasthan was arrested by the cyber crime team of Delhi Police for duping 150 investors with a ponzi scheme offering 100 per cent profit on their investment, an official said on Tuesday.
Thirty-one-year-old Vinod Kumar, a resident of Purani Abadi, Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan, was arrested and his two mobile phones, containing incriminating chats and YouTube promotional content related to the ponzi scheme, were seized.
A Delhi Police team arrested him from Sri Ganganagar after tracking his location using electronic surveillance.
District Commissioner of Police (Central Delhi) M. Harsha Vardhan said that Vinod got a website designed by the name ‘DW Exchange Pro’ and advertised high-return schemes through social media like YouTube and Facebook.
After luring investors, he asked investors to deposit their money in his accounts in public sector banks like the State Bank of India and Punjab National Bank. He later reinvested the money received from investors in crypto.
“In order to deceive people, he returned small profits initially and gained trust, but later stopped paying back money. He used multiple WhatsApp numbers to carry out the fraud systematically,” said the DCP.
The matter reached Central District police on the complaint of an investor who was duped of Rs 19 lakh by Vinod in 2024 on the pretext of offering returns of up to 28 per cent per month.
The complainant filed an online plea informing the police that he had invested money after coming across YouTube videos promoting high returns.
After clicking on a link provided in the YouTube video, the complainant and his wife joined a WhatsApp group named ‘Dollar Win Exchange’, where they were induced to invest starting from Rs 1,000. Initially, they received small profits, but later they were persuaded to invest larger sums.
Eventually, the profit and interest payments stopped, and they realised they had been defrauded, said the police.
Subsequently, based on his complaint, a case under section 318(4) BNS – crime of cheating and dishonestly inducing someone to deliver property – was registered at Cyber Police Station, Central District, said the DCP.
During the investigation, Vinod told police that he previously worked in a cooperative society for six years, where he gained experience in multi-level marketing and convincing people to invest.
–IANS
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