Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police have arrested another person for his alleged involvement in an online betting scam, an official said Thursday.
The accused, identified as Jitendra Mallick (27), was arrested from Bengaluru on June 4 and brought to Odisha on remand June 9, he said.
Earlier, four persons had been arrested in the case from West Bengal, Rajasthan and Kerala. They are currently in jail. Similarly, a ‘lookout’ circular has been issued against another accused, Md Saif, he said.
He said that the accused persons have duped more than 800 investors of Ganjam district promising high returns on their invested money.
Although the fraudsters initially paid the investors the promised returns for a few days, later, when the membership increased, they stopped making any payment and closed the app, he added.
Mallick was responsible for promoting and giving publicity to the fraudulent app across Odisha.
Many new investors were enrolled by him to invest in the app. He had organised meetings in different hotels in Berhampur, Bhubaneswar and other places, EOW officials said.
The fraud has got all-India ramifications, and the fraud amount involved is suspected to be more than Rs 1,000 crore, out of which EOW has been able to trace transactions of approximately Rs 446 crore till now and frozen a total amount of Rs 1.25 crore, they said.
PTI
