Get rich quick: The anatomy of a fake cryptocurrency scam | Latest News India

Bhubaneswar At 11.45am on August 4, a two-member team of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Odisha police, headed by deputy superintendent of police Sasmita Sahoo, landed outside a run-down hotel in the dusty town of Sri Ganganagar in Rajasthan. They were tired. Over the last few days, 40-year-old Gurtej Singh Sidhu, accused of a “cryptocurrency scam” worth close to ₹1,000 crore, had led them on a chase from Goa, to Delhi, to Amritsar, and finally to Rajasthan.

They were in plainclothes, and they were careful. They were certain that Sidhu was in one of the “super deluxe” rooms but decided to make discreet enquiries first. A waiter at the hotel confirmed the presence of a man matching his name and description. A little before 1pm, with personnel from the Rajasthan Police in tow, the team barged into the room. “Startled, he first tried to say that he had done nothing wrong. But he fell quiet after we told him about the long list of unsuspecting victims that had fallen for his multilevel marketing scam,” Sahoo said.

Sidhu, police said, headed a scheme called Solar Techno Alliance (STA) that was allegedly passed of as a cryptocurrency in the same vein as the popular Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin or Litecoin. “Investors were promised that they would earn between $20 to $3,000 per day if they joined the scheme and added more members. Our investigations have found that people have collectively invested more than ₹1,000 crores in this scam from states such as Odisha, Bihar, Delhi, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, MP, and Haryana. At least 10,000 victims are from Odisha alone,” said Jai Narayan Pankaj, inspector general at EOW.

Since Sidhu’s arrest, the Odisha EOW have arrested two more associates, identified as Nirod Das, who headed the Odisha operations, and Ratnakar Palai, who was the propaganda head, and four people have had lookout notices issued against them by the Bureau of Immigration including a Hungarian national.

Those arrested are being questioned by EOW after being charged under sections of cheating, forgery, and criminal conspiracy of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and under sections of the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act.

EOW officials started investigating the case earlier this year, officials said, after receiving intelligence inputs. Before the chase for Sidhu even began, DSP Sahoo met the Odisha head of the STA posing as an NGO worker who wanted additional income. Suspicions confirmed, EOW registered a case at its designated police station on July 22. But only after Sidhu’s arrest, did the enormity of the “scam” stun EOW, encompassing at least 12 states, suspected money laundering and benami transactions, and the possible involvement of NRIs in Canada, Dubai, and Hungary.

“We are surprised how he pulled off the whole scam in the name of cryptocurrency which was basically a multilevel marketing scam. Thousands of people have ended up losing their life savings, and the number of arrests will only grow. From what we know now, we think it is among the largest such frauds that have taken place in India,” Pankaj said.

How the scam took place

In simple terms, cryptocurrency, first conceptualised in 2008, allows people to make payments directly to each other through an online system without a bank in between. It combined two previously developed technologies, public key encryption and blockchain, based on which the first cryptocurrency Bitcoin was launched. Soon, other cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin, Ethereum, Tether, and Swiftcoin began to emerge.

Unlike traditional money, cryptocurrencies are stored on a shared digital register of recorded data, called a blockchain. When a user sends cryptocurrency units to another, they send it to a digital wallet, with the transaction not considered final until it has been added to the blockchain through a process called mining. Akin to stock exchanges, cryptocurrencies are also traded on specific online exchanges.

To be sure, critics of cryptocurrency have pointed out that cryptos are not tied to anything of real value, create no value in and of themselves, and investing in cryptocurrency is similar to shuffling around assets with no increase in overall utility. As they sit outside of the formal banking network, there are concerns that these can fuel money laundering and hawala operations.

Born in Faridkot in 1983, Sidhu grew up in a farmer family and studied in a local school till he dropped out in Class 4. He did odd jobs — worked as a pipe mechanic, repairing tires and even at Amway, a US-based multilevel system that has been accused of being a pyramid scheme.

In 2018, Sidhu, who is active on social media, came across Patrick Matson, a 35-year-old Dutchman. They began to share ideas on marketing, and even as Matson and him were about to strike a deal, they fell out, police officials said. Sidhu then met David Gez, a Hungarian national, who once worked as a waiter, and unveiled his plan.

In September 2021, the duo launched the Solar Techno Alliance (STA) token, ostensibly as a cryptocurrency. Police officials said that Sidhu first attempted to popularise the scheme by sending a bulk WhatsApp message to around 200 people over two weeks. There were at least 20 that responded. The STA token presented itself as a solar technologies service using blockchain technology, and used buzzwords such as green energy or solar technology.

Sasmita Sahoo, EOW deputy superintendent of police, said, “In the next year, the handful who took interest in the scheme would go on to become the top members of the MLM pyramid. This works on the basic principle of new investors generating money for old investors. It was not a cryptocurrency at all.”

The enrolment process was fairly simple. New members were reeled in by YouTube videos, Facebook or Instagram posts as well as word of mouth publicity and asked to purchase STA tokens in slabs that began from US $ 30 (around ₹2,500) to up to US $10,000 ( ₹8.3 lakh). Investors were promised a monthly return ranging from between 7% to 13% depending on the money they put in.

Incomes were based on hierarchies on what token was bought. Pearl was the lowest with a “daily assured income” of just $1.5 dollars, and the highest was Kohinoor with a “daily assured income” of $2,500. In between, the other slabs included names such as Ruby, Emerald, Topaz, Diamond, Pink Diamond, Blue Diamond and Hope Diamond.

Like other popular cryptocurrencies, STA too asked that an e-wallet be installed in the users mobile phone. To get a regular monthly return, investors were asked to keep the money for a holding period of a 100 days, and bring in more members that would increase regular income. Once they became STA members, investors could withdraw money over a period of 40 months.

The victims

Biswanath Das, a small-time grocer in Bhadrak district’s Sanalpur village was finding it difficult to make ends meet. Then, in July 2023, a person in the area told him about a scheme where he could get the magical returns of 20% a year. He knew little else about the scheme, but the lure of the rate of return was enough. “I withdrew ₹88,000 from my bank account, and bought an STA crypto,” he said. Within the first four weeks, he received ₹3,850 as “interest”, but nothing thereafter.

It kept getting worse.

When Sidhu was arrested in early August, the acquaintance who drafted him in, disappeared too. “There are several people in my area who have invested ₹2-3 lakh each, but have not got any money in last few months. I know we have been cheated,” 38-year-old Das said.

About 640km away from Bhadrak, 30-year-old Manish Kumar in Bihar Sharif town in Nalanda heard about the STA token from a friend, and enrolled in October 2022, investing ₹30,000. “The man who got me enrolled was earning huge amounts and bought land. Soon after I joined, I received ₹1,000 as interest a month. Though I did not receive any money after that, I lived in the hope of getting returns as there were at least 200 people from my town who had also enrolled. But since last fortnight, the person who made us join has vanished and switched off his phone. The WhatsApp group which was started for my area has also closed down,” said Kumar.

How the facade was maintained

EOW officials said that Sidhu kept the scheme whirring through constant trips to different states where STA events were organised. Significant investors were taken to Dubai and Bangkok. “In July, ₹1.5 crores was spent on an event in Goa where film star Govinda was invited as chief guest,” said Pankaj of EOW. HT reached out to the film star but there was no response to phone calls or messages.

“On top of that, there were various Instagram and YouTube shorts in which people posted things such as “power of STA business”, “STA token mein join hote hi itna profit”, and “STA token mein itna investment”. There are several YouTube videos where people say they are earning ₹1.5 lakh rupees a month despite investing only a few thousands,” said Sahoo.

Officials said that Sidhu personally monitored who was inactive on the STA networks. “Sidhu is incredibly smart, and knew exactly how to run the scam with the help of his associates. If anyone stopped spreading news on STA, they were threatened, and their e-wallet (with the money in it) was blocked. On WhatsApp groups, they were shamed and called traitors,” a senior police officer said.

“Though cryptocurrency is supposed to be decentralised, Sidhu ran it with an iron fist. He had a technical team which met everyday at 8.30pm where regular assessment of people in the network was done. He retained the power to throw out anyone he wanted,” a senior police official said.

HT tried to reach out to the “state heads” of STA but they could not be contacted.

Sidhu’s lawyer, Paresh Nath Das however said the allegations against his client would not stand scrutiny in court. “Solar Techno Alliance is a leading organisation in IT-enabled services which had a professional team for future technologies like AI and blockchain. People are still invested in STA and Sidhu will come out clean,” he said.

To be sure, while India has yet to allow trading in cryptocurrency, it levies a 30% tax on profits from selling, swapping, or spending of all virtual digital assets, giving the currencies some legitimacy. The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021 to create a favourable framework for the creation of digital currency is yet to be reintroduced in Parliament.

EOW officials said that they were now working on a blueprint to arrest more people, particularly those that got others to invest. Last week, a Look Out Circular was issued against three people from Rajasthan who were planning to flee to Dubai and Thailand, even as EOW continues to be on the lookout for David Gez, who travelled to India as a tourist twice between 2022 and 2023, investigations have revealed.

But EOW officials said that a sticking point is that many victims still think investigations are a pause before things start moving again. “But such is the lure of such schemes,” Pankaj said, “that there are people we are coming across who still believe this is a temporary setback and money will arrive in the new few months.”