Webwork Ponzi scam

By Webwork, Anurag Garg and Sandesh Verma grabbed Rs 260 crore from public in just four months in a scheme which had no revenue other than the investors' money.^[1][2]

Background

One of the two Webwork Ponzi partners was inspired by Anubhav Mittal's 'like' Ponzi scheme. Sandesh Verma, one of the two directors of Webwork, revealed that he had subscribed to three IDs in Mittal's Social Trade scheme, and then founded Webwork Trade Links. They roped in around 500 crore from people.^{[1][3][4][5][6]}

Modus operandi of Social trade

The company offered plans in five different slabs of Rs 5,750, Rs 11,500, Rs 28,750, Rs 57,500 and Rs 1,15,000 and after making payment for a particular publishing plan, it offered Rs 6 for advertising one link at its webpage, 'addsbook.com'.^[7]

For each plan, a unique ID and password are created for the "publisher", who can advertise multiple links of products registered and subscribed on addsbook.com on their social media accounts. Under the "promotional and referral income" feature which is displayed on the company's website, it has also said that any publisher (investor) who refers the company's plan to his friends and relatives would be eligible to get 5% of the licence publishing fees as promotional and referral income.^[7]

Key people

Anurag Garg and Sandesh Verma, the two started the company Webwork Trade Links Pvt Ltd on September 5, 2016.^[7]

Collapse

Alarmed at the Rs 3,700 crore Ponzi scam orchestrated by Anubhav Mittal's socialtrade.biz, which involved over six lakh investors, panic gripped investors who have put their money in similar 'pay per click' plans of other companies. So some companies like these suspended operations or some started refunding investors, while others asked investors to opt for bitcoin. In this case Webwork also started returning money and also offered repayment in bitcoins, instead of bank transfer.^[8]

The investors included chartered accountants, engineers and other professionals.^[9]

Aftermath and reactions

Directors of company Anurag Garg and Sandesh Verma tried to convince the police and people that they are different from Social Trade, offered by Anubhav Mittal of Ablaze Info Solutions.^[10]

Centre for Cyber Crime Investigation (CCCI), Noida said e-mail complaints can be sent online on there website (http://www.cccinoida.org/registration.php).^[11]

Criminal prosecution and ongoing investigations

When company stopped sending "advertisement clicks" and website remained closed/switched off, Ghaziabad resident, Amit Kishore Jain, who had invested Rs 1,72,500 on behalf of himself, his wife and daughter for the publishing plan of Rs 57,500, filed the complaint. In FIR registered on 12th Feb 2017 evening, Jain has alleged that the company stopped making partial payment to all the six IDs after January 3 and suddenly stopped making payments and when we visited their office where the company staff/directors misbehaved with me, abused me and my wife and threatened to kill me if I raised my voice again. We were returned home in fear. Jain also alleged that the company had hired a gang of 200-300 people who used to persuade "innocent people" to take more and more user IDs. The complaint lodged at the Sector 20 police station has attracted IPC sections of 406 (breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery of purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and Section 66 of the IT Act.

Police sources said that a letter seeking the formation of the SIT has been sent to the ADG (crime) Lucknow, Abhay Prasad, and the team could be formed within a day.^[12]

SP, Dinesh Yadav said the police have found four bank accounts of ICICI Bank and Yes Bank and have frozen the deposited amounts.^[13] Police found Rs 15 crore with an ICICI bank account and Rs 1.51 crore in Axis Bank and Rs 10.14 crore in Vijaya Bank at its Barakhamba Road branch.^[14][15] Anurag Garg and Sandesh Verma neither surrendered nor were chased by the police but gave themselves on a silver platter to the police.^[15]

Later Police also found one more account at Laxmi Vilas Bank of Connaught Place with deposits of around Rs 5 to 6 lakhs.^[11]

Police has frozen Rs 27 crore in different bank accounts and seized Rs 6 crore bank drafts so far and nearly 50 people from Noida, Ghaziabad, Delhi and Haryana have come forward and lodged complaints against the company.^[11]

In their investigations into the Ponzi scheme of Webwork Trade Private Ltd, police also found that one of the directors of the company is also a politician. Nishi Tyagi, one of the three directors, is the chief of Purkaji block in Muzaffarnagar. According to Dehradun police, Vinay Tyagi has 32 cases against him, including murder, loot and attempt to murder. He also carries a cash reward of Rs 1.25 lakh on his head. Manoj Kumar Gupta was abducted from his farmhouse in Dehradun on February 19, 2017.^[16]

On Feb 21, 2017 court granted police remand of Garg and Verma from February 22–26.^[17]

On Mar 02 2017, police said scam will be investigated by the economic offences wing (EOW) of the UP government.^[2]

Bollywood Celebrities involvements

It was found prominent Bollywood celebrities also got mislead by scam and endorsed and advertised the scams.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui was seen promoting Web Works for ‘easy and assured’ money,^[18][19] while Shahrukh Khan is seen encouraging users to visit AddBooks.com, which belongs to the group.^[20][5]

See also

• Social Trade Ponzi scam
• List of scandals in India
• Ponzi scam
• Pyramid scheme
• Saradha Group financial scandal
• Corruption in India
• Rose Valley financial scandal

References

External links

• Webwork Ponzi scam collected news and commentary at Times of India
• Centre for Cyber Crime Investigation Cell, Noida