Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Crime Branch Police arrested another accused of the multi-crore Q-Net scam, Monday.
The accused has been identified as Prashant Mohanty. The accused was arrested from his residence in Patia here.
The cops had arrested another four persons in this connection. They are Sarat Parida of Bramheswarpatna, Debabrata Harichandan of Chandrasekharpur and Chandan Mahalik of Jagannath Vihar area. The Orissa High Court had earlier rejected the anticipatory bail pleas of all accused January 20.
All the above accused were the partners of QNet and Vihaan Direct Selling (India) Pvt Ltd. All of them have been arrested under section 406, 420,467,468, 471 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code and section 4, 5, 6 of Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (banning) Act, 1978.
According to the police, Vihaan Direct Selling (India) Pvt Ltd, formerly known as Gold Quest and Quest Net, is a Hong Kong-based direct selling/multi-level marketing (MLM) company owned by the QI Group. They were targeting software employees, unemployed youth and homemakers to sell their products in the categories of homecare, personal care, skincare, health food supplements, watches and holiday packages.
Notably, it was alleged that the company duped several investors worth Rs 5,000 crore.
It was alleged that the directors and partners through India franchise –Vihaan Direct Selling (India) Pvt Ltd were engaged in illegal money circulation schemes in the guise of direct selling and multi-level marketing and collected crores of rupees from investors in Odisha.
PNN