The Mumbai police have booked 25 entities, including the directors of IX Global LLC, IX Global Academy Pvt Ltd, Pochale Global Academy Pvt Ltd, TP Global FX, their directors and agents for duping 204 investors of around Rs35.21 crore. In a similar case, the Nagpur police have also registered a first information report (FIR) against some entities, including Suraj Savarkar, an agent of TP Global FX. Meanwhile, the market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), after receiving a specific complaint about the illegal investment fraud in November 2022, alerted the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Maharashtra government.
As per the FIR registered by Amboli police station in Mumbai, these 25 entities collected money from 214 investors by promising 5% to 25% returns every month on investments in binary, forex, sports and cryptocurrencies. Since the amount involved in the alleged fraud is over Rs10 crore, the investigation of the case is likely to be transferred to the economic offences wing (EOW) of the Mumbai police.
Earlier in February, a similar FIR was registered in Nagpur city police station against one Suraj Savarkar, PR Traders, MR Traders, RK Traders, and Greenvalley Agro M Traders. The case has now been transferred to the EOW of Nagpur police.
In November 2022, Pranjal R Daniel of Strategy India, a direct selling consultancy, sent a communication to the SEBI chief alerting on a forex trading and investments scam allegedly worth around Rs16,000 crore run by TP Global FX and thedebtbox.com, an associate of iX Global.
In the communication to SEBI, Mr Daniel mentioned that "Apart from collections of money against monthly 'subscriptions' for forex trading bots (US$50/115/145/180=US$100mn-million from April 2022 to 8 October 2022), investments of more than Rs16,000 crore in TP Global FX (in the alert list of RBI) and the collection of deposits and investments for the debt box, also not permitted by SEBI."
"iX Global also collected Rs104.70 crore from investors 'against' investment in a non-fungible token (NFT) at US$1500 per unit if purchased in seven days (March 2022) and US$1750 per unit if purchased after seven days," he says. NFT is a unique digital identifier recorded on a blockchain. It is used to certify ownership and authenticity and can be transferred by the e-owner only.
Market regulator SEBI forwarded the information to RBI, saying that it observed that TP Global FX was engaged in forex trading without authorisation and included in the alert list issued by RBI and thedebtbox.com was in the business of cryptocurrencies and selling licenses for mining. "As these matters fall under the purview of RBI, the complaint is being referred for info and necessary action," SEBI said in a letter to RBI in December 2022.
In the same month, SEBI forwarded the complaint against IX Global Academy Pvt Ltd to the chief secretary of Maharashtra. It stated, "The complaint is being forwarded to you for your information and necessary action under the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Act, 2019."
In January this year, the directorate of enforcement (ED) conducted searches under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata and froze Rs64 lakh in bank accounts and cryptocurrency, mainly BTC 1.46 (equivalent to Rs57 lakh) lying in crypto wallet in the Binance crypto exchange in the case of TM Traders and KK Traders.
The ED's investigation was based on an FIR registered by the Kolkata police against TM Traders and KK Traders. As per a writ petition filed before the Calcutta High Court (HC), an amount worth around Rs121.02 crore has been lying in 180 bank accounts of various entities related to the case.
The ED investigation revealed that Prasenjit Das, Shailesh Kumar Pandey, Tushar Patel and others, through various dummy companies, firms and entities, defrauded investors under the guise of making investments in forex trading by using the platform or website of TP Global FX.
It says, "These funds were subsequently used in the purchase of movable and immovable properties for personal gains and benefits of accused persons. The members or users of iX Global use the brokerage services of TP Global FX to do their forex trading. iX Global got the proceeds of crime in promoting TP Global FX and is promoted by Viraj Suhas Patil and Joseph Martinez."
Earlier, the ED had arrested Shailesh Kumar Pandey, Prasenjit Das and Viraj Suhas Patil. In this case, Rs121.16 crore was frozen in bank accounts under Section 17(1A) of PMLA, and properties worth Rs121.23 crore in cash, gold, flat, hotel, resorts and vehicles were attached. The ED also filed prosecution complaints against Shailesh Kumar Pandey and Prasenjit Das.
Police from Mumbai and Kolkata have issued arrest warrants against Joseph Martinez, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of US-based IX Global. Viraj Patil, who is behind bars, was running iX Global's investment scam in India. While iX Global defrauded investors from the US through Debt Box in India, Mr Patil used TP Global FX to cheat investors from across the country.
In July 2023, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against iX Global and Debt Box, accusing these firms of orchestrating an illegal crypto scheme worth US$50mn. However, due to revelations of false statements and misrepresentations by the SEC, the US district court of Utah dismissed the case while directing the regulator to pay around US$1.8mn as litigation costs and receivership fees.
This is global TP global scan not in the Mumbai Nagpur Kolkata region but also in Punjab nobody came forward to complaint because of shame.
These kind of scams leave an extremely bad goodwill for other genuine online such platforms for investment.
Please take immediate stringent action against top earning leaders like Sunil Chaurasia & Sudipta Ganguly