Moirang police nabs 8 for running ponzi scheme
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, May 22 2021: Eight people including four women who fraudulently collected huge amount of money from public have been arrested by Moirang police.

The arrested people are identified as Pukhram Maikel (30) of Moirang Pukhram Leikai, Maikel's wife Babita (28), mother Rebatim (53) and younger sister Renuka (28), Pukhram Jiten (61), Maikel's relatives Khundrakpam Bikash (23) and Khundrakpam Jony (22) of Kwakeithel Makha Thokchom Leikai, and Keisham Ulen (24) of Thangmeiband Sinam Leikai.

Maikel is said to be leader of the team of fraudsters.

According to police, the team of fraudsters led by Maikel launched a ponzi scheme by opening an office named Grow Manipur Team at Moirang Pukhram Leikai and collected huge amount of money from people by assuring high interest rate on the invested sum.

A person who invested money to Grow Manipur Team lodged a complaint at Moirang police few days back.

As per the complaint, the team led by Maikel collected Rs 29 lakh from him with the assurance of providing 7 percent interest per month.

However, Maikel's team did not pay interest since the past few months and is unable to meet any member of the team.

Based on complaint of the person, Moirang police registered an FIR under IPC Section 406/420/506/120 B and Section 4/5/6 of Prize Chits & Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978 and started investigation and all eight functionaries of the ponzi scheme were arrested from different parts of the state late Friday evening.

As per disclosure of the arrested people, they were planning to go to Russia with the money collected through the ponzi scheme.

They initially planned to leave Imphal on March 15 with crores of rupees they have collected but deferred the departure date to April 24.Unfortunately, they could not leave the state due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Police have seized flight tickets of the team.

On further investigation, the police also recovered documents relating to the ponzi scheme, bank accounts of the team, money transaction details and other items used by the team while investigation is on to ascertain the total amount the team had collected from public fraudulently.

All the arrested people were produced before the court of CJM Bishnupur through video conferencing and the court remanded all of them to police custody till May 28 for further questioning.

Comment