Bhubaneswar, Aug 16: Economic Offence Wing (EOW), Odisha, has arrested one more accused in the multi crore Solar Techno Alliance (STA) Crypto Scam.
EOW sources here on Wednesday said one Ratnakar Palai was arrested from Bhubaneswar on Tuesday and he will be produced before the OPID Court, Cuttack on Wednesday.
Ratnakar Palai, 45, an M.Tech in IT from Karnataka University, Bangalore and claims to be an international speaker, entrepreneur and investment guru, is an important and up-line member of STA having huge number of members below him.
He is also propaganda head/ social media influencer of STA in Odisha. He used to run a YouTube channel for wider publicity of this scheme and is member of some other such dubious scams too which is under scrutiny, EOW sources here said.
Palai also runs an institute namely ‘Learn to earn”.
Earlier EOW arrested the India head of “STA Crypto token” — Gurtej Sigh Sidhu, (40)a native of Faridkot, Punjab and one Nirod Das of Bhadrak, the Odisha head of STA.
Nirod was arrested after getting intelligence report that a crypto currency based Ponzi scam is being run in Bhadrak, Balasore, Bhubaneswar, Mayurbhanj, Jajpur, Kendrapada and Keonjhar districts.
After the arrest of Gurtej and Nirod, Palai has either deleted or deactivated his social media accounts. He had also visited Goa along with Nirod to participate in STA celebration.
Nirod was arrested after getting intelligence report that a crypto currency based Ponzi scam is being run in Bhadrak, Balasore, Bhubaneswar, Mayurbhanj, Jajpur, kendrapada and Keonjhar districts.
OPID Court Cuttack has granted 5 more days remand of both the accused
— Gurtej Singh sidhu and Nirod Das. Earlier EOW had made a prayer for extension of remand as the case is very complex involving multiple states and huge amount of money.
It was found that members have started using the STA token like a legal tender in their day to day business.
It is estimated that more than 10000 people from Odisha have already been members of this scheme. This scheme/scam has more than 2 lakh members (Pan India) mainly in the states like Punjab, Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, Haryana, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Assam.
STA (Solar Techno Alliance) its website & social media accounts it claims to be a “ 1. 2. 3. STA website is hosted from Iceland but its activity is limited to India.
STA is headed by one David Gez, a Hungarian native. Total money involved in the scam (PAN India) is estimated to be more than Rs 1,000 crore. EOW said.
