Ponzi scheme busted in Panaji, 4 held for duping 400

PANAJI: Goa police on Saturday busted a ponzi scheme in which over 400 people across seven states were duped of over Rs 1 crore in just a month. The police also arrested four people, including the scheme’s masterminds from Telangana and Tamil Nadu. The four cheated customers by promising returns of 3% per day, while also wooing them with luxury sedans to get new customers.
SP Shobhit Saksena of the Goa police’s economic offences cell told TOI that the four cheated people in Goa, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
The four accused were earlier real estate agents, and then became ‘agents’ in other ponzi schemes in Andhra Pradesh and Maharahstra. “This time they decided to start their own scheme,” Saksena said.
Saksena said that the incident came to light when they received a complaint from one Ismail Munshi, who invested Rs 10,000 in a scheme run by a company called Dreams2Reality. It accepted deposits from persons ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 5,00,000, and promised daily returns up to 3% along with air tickets to Goa, free entry into casinos, and hotel stays.
It also offered investors additional benefits like iPhones, scooters, motorcycles and German luxury cars. The complainant further told police that the ‘company’ didn’t get provide receipts for investments, and their entire functioning was online, on a website that functioned like a casino.
Saksena said that the accused persons promised investors that they would invest the money through casino operators and daily customers, and delivered daily interest between Rs 100 and Rs 200.
The EOC then found that Dreams2Reality ran its office at Patto, Panaji, in the guise of a travel agency.
“It had no permission from RBI, SEBI or any other regulating agency for accepting deposits or investment,” said Saksena. “Nor was any investment being made when their suspected bank accounts were analysed and the money circulating between various accounts of the fraudsters was being paid back to investors to build confidence in the scheme and draw more investors.”
The Goa police then filed an FIR under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and other laws. After that, the EOC raided all the fraudsters’ known premises — their rented place of residence at Kadamba plateau, and their office at Patto. Four persons — Dasarath Boora, the mastermind, Adi Ganesh, the head of the company, Fakruddin, their Goa agent, and Sandeep, their IT expert — were arrested.
“One Goan woman called Shweta was also involved in their marketing operations in Goa, and her involvement is also being verified,” Saksena said.
Saksena also said that all known bank accounts of the fraudsters have been frozen. “Since the scheme was less than a month old, a major loss of hard-earned money was prevented by the swift action of Goa police’s EOC,” he said.
Upon interrogation of the accused persons, it was established that although they had fashioned their scheme as a scheme for investment in casino games, it was actually a money circulating, multi-level marketing and ponzi scheme where they just transferred parts of funds received as investments from new customers to old ones.
“They stated that they started the scheme in Goa after they came to the state in September 2019,” Saksena said. “They hatched a plan to exploit the unique and attractive casino tourism of Goa by offering people outside Goa to be able to play and invest in these casinos.”
As per the plan, they were going to accept investments for up to three months, and when they estimated they would have made around Rs 5 crore, they would simply have shut shop and absconded with people’s hard-earned money. “They promises investors that they would double the amount invested,” Saksena said.