Bhubaneswar: OPID Court Cuttack has remanded for five more days to Gurtej Singh Sidhu and Nirod Das, the two accused in the Solar Techno Alliance (STA) Crypto-Ponzi scam, an EOW source said Sunday.
The source said it had made a prayer for an extension of remand as the case is very complex involving multiple states and a huge amount of money.
The accused are needed for examination on various aspects of the scam like money trail, siphoning of money, benami transactions, money laundering, network in other countries, among others.
Notably, India head of STA crypto token Gurtej Sigh Sidhu, a native of Faridkot, Punjab and Nirod Das, head of STA in Odisha, were arrested by the EOW of Odisha in the Ponzi scam involving more than Rs 1,000 crore.
During enquiry, it was found that STA through some up-line members were very active in several Odisha districts 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, said a source.
It was found that members have started using the STA token like a legal tender in their day-to-day business. It is estimated that more than 10,000 people from Odisha have already been members of this scheme, added the source.
This scam has more than two lakh members (Pan India) mainly in the states like Punjab, Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, Haryana, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra, and Assam, the source informed.
During investigation, it was noticed that STA is not authorized by RBI or any other authorities to collect deposits.It runs a huge Ponzi (MLM/ Pyramid) scheme in the garb of Crypto Token, added the source.
STA is headed by one David Gez, a young Hungarian (Europe) national who has visited India multiple times. Both David Gej and Gurtej Sidhu have travelled to many places in India including Odisha and have attended various STA Programmes, the source informed.
STA conducts several publicity programs at various places to spread its membership. The members are promised that they will earn $20 to $3000 per day if they join this scheme and add more members under them, added the source.
EOW source claimed that transactions (credit & debit) of more than Rs 30 crore was noticed in the bank account of Nirod Das, the Odisha head of STA. Also there is a huge cash deposit in his accounts which indicates that lots of black money is routed/ parked in this scam.
All the accounts have been frozen, the EOW said, total money involved (Pan India) in STA is estimated to be more than Rs 1000 crores.
UNI