Mastermind of crypto fraud arrested

Bhubaneswar: The EOW also arrested Basant Kumar Pradhan and Manoj Kumar Patnaik from Bhubaneswar on November 16, who are the up line members of Yes World in Odisha. They will also be produced before the OPID Court, Cuttack today.

EOW arrested the Head of “YES WORLD Crypto Token” namely Sandeep Choudhary (40 Yrs.) from Jaipur, Rajasthan. He is a native of Jhunjhunu, Rajsthan. This refers to EOW Case No.25 dt.16.10.2023 U/s 420/467/468/471/120-B IPC, 4/5/6 of PCMCs (Banning) Act, Sec.6 of OPID Act and Sec.65 (C) of IT Act.

He was absconding and there was a possibility of his fleeing from India, a LOC (Look Out Circular) was issued against him by BOI on the request of EOW, Odisha. On November 15 while he was trying to escape from India to Dubai, he was intercepted and detained by BOI at Jaipur International airport under intimation to EOW, Odisha.

EOW team went to Jaipur and arrested the accused. He was produced before the local court in Jaipur on 16.11.2023. The court granted 05 days transit remand. He was brought to Odisha and he will be produced before the Hon’ble OPID Court, Cuttack, Odisha.

This case was registered on the complaint of one Swagat Kumar Nayak of Market Chhak, Daitapada Sahi, Puri. He had alleged that he has been cheated by Sandeep Choudhary, Basant Kumar, Manoj Kumar Patnaik and others of Yes World of around Rs.85,000/-.

During investigation it was found that “Yes World” is running a huge Ponzi/ MLM/ money Circulation scheme in the name of Crypto Coin/ Token. This APP/ Company does not have any substantive/ matching business/ activity on the ground but depend only on Pyramid Ponzi scheme by adding more and more numbers of people below them (Known as down line members) by tempting/fooling them with very high returns in a very short time.

There are more than 8000 members/investors in Odisha alone who have invested money in this scheme. In Odisha, it is mainly spread in Bhubaneswar, Khordha, Bhadrak, Kendrapada, Jagatsinghpur, Keonjhar and Nayagarh. This scheme/scam has around 2.5 lakh members (Pan India) mainly in the states like Punjab, Rajasthan, Odisha, West Bengal, Haryana, Gujrat,
Bihar, Jharkhand etc.

It was found that, YES WORLD through some up-line members is very active in some Districts of Odisha too and they have been using various propaganda tools to persuade people to join in this scheme and earn huge money in a very short time. In its website and social media accounts it claims to be an “Innovative Climate Tech Company which creates solutions to help business and
consumers combat climate change”.

But during investigation it was noticed that:

1. YES World runs a huge Ponzi (MLM/ Pyramid) scheme in the garb of Crypto Token. Like STA it also uses the socially popular terms like Climate Change, Green Energy, Solar Technology, Save Earth Mission etc. to mask its Crypto-Ponzi scam.
2. Yes World is not authorized by RBI or any other authorities to collect deposits
3. Yes World is claiming to be registered in Singapore but its business/activity is targeted/ limited to India.
4. Yes World is active on various social media platforms but there its postings are limited to its mask (Climate Change, Global warming, pictures with celebrities etc.) but not the Crypto-Ponzi scheme.
5. Yes World is headed by one Sandeep Chaudhary who is also the Director/ has been Director of numerous suspected shell companies.
6. He and some other up-line members used to conduct daily Zoom meetings to attract/influence members.
7. Manoj Patnaik and Basant Kumar Pradhan of Odisha had conducted many physical meetings in Bhubaneswar and Puri to attract/ influence new members/investors.
8. Sandeep Chaudhary has travelled to Odisha too in order to promote the scheme.
9. Sandeep Chaudhary has done B. Tech from NIIT Jaipur.
10. Sandeep Chaudhary is also in the habit of managing/getting photographed with celebrities and using those pictures to influence the new members.
11. He has also managed to get many awards and degree and use this as a tool to influence the new members.
12. News article about Yes World has been published/ telecasted by some media houses which he uses as a tool to propagate Yes World.
13. Yes World conducts several publicity programs at various places to spread its membership. They use fancy hotels, motivational speakers, music, lunch/dinner etc. in such meetings to brainwash future members. They also run several YouTube channels for publicity and tutoring the
    new members.
14. Members are promised that they will earn huge money if they join this scheme and add more members under them.
15. Members get bonus and various royalties for adding new members.
16. Yes World Token is controlled by few top members who pump or dump the token in order to influence the market price and get hugely benefitted at the cost of ordinary investors.
17. Like any other MLM/Ponzi scheme, members initially do get some monetary benefits which tempt them to add more and more members under them.
18. Total money involved (Pan India) in Yes World is estimated to be more than Rs.200 Crores.

Advisory to people:

1. All are advised to not to invest their hard earned money in such MLM/Ponzi scheme which shows you the dream of becoming millionaire in unrealistically short time. You may get some initial benefits but ultimately you will lose a huge amount.
2. In Ponzi scams the up line members are generally benefitted as long as new members keep joining but beyond a point when new members entry is diminished the entire system/ network collapses causing huge loss to low line members.
3. There is plethora of good and legal investment options, people should try them.
4. In such scheme, not only you suffer but you make many others suffer by adding them as your down-line members.
5. One needs to be alert when any company claiming to do crypto business but motivates/induces through whatsapp group/physical meeting to add members under a chain system.
6. One needs to be alert when Words like earning lucrative bonus under schemes like referral / mentors/ staking / royalty / matching are used as they are usually Ponzi schemes. Investment in crypto is an individual option and does not entail adding people down line.