Bhubaneswar, Apr 30: The designated court under the OPID Act in Odisha’s Balasore on Wednesday sentenced a fraudster to seven years rigorous imprisonment in cyber fraud worth Rs 1.13 crore.

The convict, Nilesh Kumar Kar, has also been asked to pay a fine of Rs 2.35 lakhs. Kar would serve rigorous imprisonment (RI) for two more years if he fails to pay the amount.

The convict Kar was arrested on April 6, 2023, from Balasore in connection with a case registered by the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police over the allegations of Mahamanya Jena of Sahadevbkhunta area of the district.

The complainant accused Kar of inducing him to invest in an app/website, namely ‘Cloud-Fut’, for earning extra money. Being induced by him, the informant invested Rs 2,13,038 by depositing the same between January to March 2023.

“When he was supposed to get Rs 50,57,117 on his invested amount, as shown in the wallet of ‘Cloud-Fut’, suddenly the website stopped functioning and the informant could not withdraw the amount,” informed EOW in a statement.

It further noted that the ‘Cloud-Fut’ website is a fake website developed for mining cryptocurrency, and one has to invest the minimum amount of Rs 665 to be a member so as to get a return of Rs 1487.25 after 37 days.

The victim investors were assured of earning about Rs. 40 each daily on the invested amount. After becoming a member, one used to get Rs.1.75 Paisa daily for login.

“The convict Nilesh Kar, being the leader of the fake website for Balasore district, has induced more than 400 persons of Odisha, including the informant, to be members of the website. In order to create faith, the convict showed the fake authorisation letter from RBI and also the appointment letter of ‘Cloud-Fut’ as District leader to the investors,” added the EOW.

After collecting crores of rupees, suddenly the wallet and the website were closed, throwing the investors into despair. Thus, the convict, along with other accused persons, cheated the investors of Odisha of only Rs 1.13 crores.

The EOW sleuths found during the investigation that the fraudsters used to cheat innocent victims from across the country through the fake website ‘Cloud-Fut’ on the pretext of investment through Crypto investment.

The accused fraudsters were actually running an online Ponzi scam under the guise of crypto investment. (IANS)

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