Navi Mumbai: Two months after a case was registered with the APMC police, a man from Lucknow was arrested by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) unit I for cheating people under the ‘pay per click scheme’.
The accused identified as Niyas Ahmed (47) handled the technical aspects. “Even though he is a Class VIII pass, he has sound knowledge of networking and programming. The other two identified as Rajendrakumar Negi and Rakesh Ranjan were the brain behind the scam. He was paid as per the business they got,” said senior police inspector Shivaji Awate.
The complaint was filed in August by Ratiranjan Raul, a hotel manager in APMC area. The case was later transferred to the EOW unit I. As per the complaint, the trio cheated people under the scheme of multi-level marketing by starting STG Media firm at Satra Plaza in Vashi.
“A customer would buy one of the packages starting at ₹5,000 up to ₹1 lakh after which, he would have to create an account. He then gets a login and password with their website and every day, the company sends links to their account. The person would be asked to click the link and get paid ₹5 per click. The number of links depends on the package,” said Mr. Awate.
The scheme promised 10-time returns in a year, apart from the bonus and 10% of the referrals.