E-Paper
Odisha: Look out circular issued against 3 persons in Crypto scam
EOW officials said lookout circulars have been issued against the three accused as they were reportedly planning to flee to Dubai and Thailand
A month after the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of theOdisha Police bust a crypto token scam of ₹1,000 crore, the Bureau of Immigration has issued Look-Out Circulars against three persons of Rajasthan, who are the close associates of the main accused Gurtej Singh Sidhu.
The LOC was issued against Krishna Kumar of Hanumangarh, Anil Kumar of Sri Ganganagar, and Bhoora Ram of Nagaur. Sidhu, who masterminded the STA crypto token scam, was arrested from a hotel in Sri Ganganagar early this month
EOW officials said lookout circulars have been issued against the three as they were reportedly planning to flee to Dubai and Thailand. The three associates of Sidhu looked after the financial and technical management of the scheme that essentially worked as multi level marketing scam and not a cryptocurrency.
The Crypto Token - STA Token or Solar Techno Alliance token - was launched in September 2021 and soon gained popularity with people being promised anything between 1.5 US Dollars and 5,000 US Dollars a day. In less than two years, more than 2 lakh people in 12 states as well as UAE, Thailand and Canada became its members. However, most of the people, who became its members in the hope of making quick profit, started losing money as they failed to get new members for the crypto scheme.
Sidhu paid high commissions to people who invited new members, which made it look like the scheme was legitimate. However, the only way to make money was to recruit new members, and the scheme eventually collapsed when there were no more new members to recruit.
Earlier, a look out circular was issued against David Gez, a 32-year-old Hungarian national who is said to be the global head of this scheme/scam. Further investigation into the case is underway. Gez, who worked as a waiter, entered India twice in 2022-23 on a tourist visa and stayed in India for about 25 days travelling to various places like Odisha, Goa, Punjab, Jharkhand and Delhi
EOW has so far arrested two persons - Nirod Das, head of the scheme’s Odisha operations, and Ratnakar Palai, who looked after the social media influence of it.
