Bhubaneswar, Dec 27 (FN Bureau) The Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Bhubaneswar has detected fraud involving over Rs 100 crores in as many as 22 cases and arrested 60 fraudsters from various states during 2022. The cases were from diversified areas of financial crimes covering from cheating and forgery in real estate, income tax fraud, online/ cyber frauds, job frauds to fake digital loan apps operated through shell companies, mule accounts and virtual/cloud based numbers. The EOW source said the figure will go up as investigation progresses.
All these cases had extensive areas of operation from the interiors of India to places outside Indian territorial boundaries like China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Nepal, and Sri lanka. EOW worked with various Law enforcement agencies of Central and other states like ED, Income tax, FIU (Financial Intelligence Unit), RBI, Intelligence Bureau, Bureau of immigration, CBI/ Interpol, CISF, various banks, GST authorities, Mumbai Police, Delhi Police, Kolkata Police, Bangalore police, Hyderabad Police, Rajasthan Police to detect these cases. The EOW was also in regular touch with Google, Facebook, Whatsapp, Go-Daddy in connection with investigation of some of the cases. The action not only saved many persons from frauds but also saved many lives. It is reported that 108 people have committed suicides after being trapped in Loan app cases in India. Fortunately no one committed suicide in Odisha though there were many people who were victims of this fraud, it said.
The Illegal digital lending Loan App cases helped to break through the new means of financial crime involving cyber technology wherein the financial transactions were routed through various complicated layering to reach China. Moreover, the registration of the cases not only helped in deterring the occurrence of suicide/ harassment through loan Apps cases in Odisha but also helped Ministry of finance/ Home Affairs & Reserve Bank of India to issue a National Advisory on illegal digital lending APPs running in the country . In this regard , ED had freezed Rs.370 crores of the shell company Yellow Tunes Technology which was headed by two persons — Sushant & Rakshit who were arrested by EOW. The Income tax TDS refund fraud case in which a novel modus operandi was used by the accused in forging the documents/ identity of other companies in filing TDS refund fraud was investigated in time thereby preventing the loss of crores of rupees to the Government Exchequer. In this case the main accused was arrested from Delhi. It also detected the Real estate/ Flat fraud by Odyssa Homes & Commercials Pvt. Ltd relating to cheating of about 42 investors to the tune of Rs.20 crores by the Directors of the company on the pretext of providing them dispute free flats in its Apartment Project namely, ‘Ganapati Homes’ located in SampurMouza, Bhubaneswar . In this case the absconding principal accused and the Managing Director of the company Manoj Panda was arrested from Andhra Pradesh.