The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested chartered accountants Anzar and Abhilash Thomas, both residents of Bengaluru, co-founders and owners of the Indus Viva MLM Pyramid Scheme, under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in a Rs 1,500 crore multi-level marketing scam.
The ED initiated investigation based on an FIR registered by Gachibowli police station, Cyberabad. The company is embroiled in a multi-level marketing scam having illegal pyramid type structure and is working under the guise of direct selling business, the ED said in a statement.
The company engaged large number of distributors and did rigorous marketing about the commission schemes of the company stating that there is a great opportunity of quick and easy money by becoming a member and then in turn making further enrollments.
In order to project their fraud pyramid scheme as a legitimate business, they introduced some products which were by their own admission valued at only 20 percent of the sale revenue and in reality are completely worthless.
The membership fee paid by new clients used to pay commission to old clients. By giving false promises and inducements, company enrolled around 10 lakh members and collected around Rs1,500 crore since its inception, it said.
The PMLA probe revealed that Anzar and Abhilash Thomas floated subsidiary companies in Indusviva Group and diverted the funds to these entities and also blatantly siphoned off the collected funds into their personal accounts.
The diverted funds were used to acquire properties/ assets in the name of individuals and companies. The accused were produced before the PMLA Special Court, Rangareddy, and have been remanded to 14-day judicial custody till December 30, it added.