Monday, February 10, 2014

SpeakAsia scam: Second main accused arrested from Bangalore

Ram Niwas Pal, who helped launder funds, had been living under another alias
The New Delhi police have arrested another accused in the Rs2,200-crore Speak Asia scam, in which at least 24 lakh investors from across the country had been cheated.

Ram Niwas Pal, 40, was arrested from Bangalore, where he had been living under another alias. Ram Niwas was the one buying companies based abroad and making contacts to launder money through them. While in Bangalore, he had been developing a business plan for a Malaysia-based IT firm and trying to get a ‘Certification of Popularity’ for the online advertisement of various websites.

Over a decade ago, he was employed with the Indian Air Force and had faced court-martial for deserting the force without any intimation in 2001.

His brother, Ram Sumiran Pal, was arrested from Dehradun last week. The third main accused, Manoj Sharma, is at large.

After escaping from Mumbai, Ram Niwas stayed in Delhi after which he moved to Lucknow and then Bangalore. To conceal his identity, he managed to get fake identity proof under an assumed name, and also changed his appearance. He also cut off contact with his family, friends and acquaintances.

Speak Asia, an online survey marketing firm, sold web subscriptions for Rs11,000 each and in return, investors had to fill survey forms for multinational firms. It promised an annual payment of Rs 52,000. After paying few investors, Speak Asia folded up in India

After over two years of investigation, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai police has frozen more than 210 bank accounts containing over Rs142 crore, and another 150 accounts are under scrutiny.
The EOW has found a trail of over Rs 750 crore being laundered across various countries like Singapore, Dubai, Italy, UK and Brazil, among others.

According to the police, Speak Asia had remitted over Rs900crore to Singapore. “The money was sent from India to banks in Singapore and from there to Dubai, Italy and the UK. The money came back from the UK again to UAE (Dubai) and back to India,” according to a release issued by the Delhi police crime branch.
Courtesy:
dna correspondent @dna
inbox@dnaindia.net
Published Date:  Dec 03, 2013
http://epaper.dnaindia.com/story.aspx?id=56088&boxid=31087&ed_date=2013-12-03&ed_code=820009&ed_page=5

No comments:

Post a Comment