www.con - web within webs

Several vital clues have been unearthed relating to the multi-million rupee online scam by Seagull Software (Pvt.) Ltd that allegedly duped thousands of investors who were lured by the company’s attractive easy money making scheme.

At least 23,000 persons have been duped by the ‘company’ of which two of the ‘directors’ and one of the ‘sub contractors’ have gone missing.

The investigation uncovered many agencies in and around Colombo which acted as sub-contractors to lure into their web young people who were desperate for quick cash. The agencies are now sealed and their documents taken by the investigations teams for further inquiries.

On Friday October 27 the Kompannaveediya police arrested a person who had been operating a small office in a building at Justice Akbar Mawatha. He was one of those agents sub-contracting the slots for the main office in Mt. Lavinia.

The person arrested is said to be the uncle of one of the local agents for Seagull who is also wanted by the police. While the person arrested was handling the Colombo 2 branch his nephew was selling slots at his company IT- Matrix in Kirullapone.

Investigators believe that the person absconding also runs a glass manufacturing company and was said to have made over Rs.400 million in the scam. The Sunday Times learns that one of the main sub-contractors had sent some of his employees to distribute leaflets outside schools such as S. Thomas, St. Peters, St. Josephs, D.S. Senanayake, Holy Family Convent, Bambalapitiya and Royal College to lure the after-A/L youngsters into investing and earning easy cash.

Investigations have revealed that though the main office was situated at 237/2, Galle Road, Mt. Lavinia - a premises which was rented - its operations were carried out from Kompann-aveediya, Kirullapone and Kottawa. Colombo Fraud Investigations Bureau (CFIB) Director H.K.S. Pinidiya told The Sunday Times that despite Sri Lanka not having laws pertaining to cyber crime the CFIB had detected the fraud and carried out extensive investigations into the matter.

“We plan on handing over the investigations to the CID once a report on the investigations was completed,” he said.

Mt. Lavinia police and the CFIB are due to hand over the investigations to the CID due to the complexity of the case, with the scam being reported as being second only to the multi-billion rupee VAT refund scam. The scam involved a person investing money on a slot worth Rs. 6,500 for 15 months for which the person will receive a monthly income of Rs. 4,000 a slot for the daily task a person does for the company by being connected to the internet once every day.

Due to the prospect of making easy money many optimistic youngsters were lured into the Seagull web. Many big time investors also began to buy slots in bulks. At the start it appeared to be a wise investment till matters went awry leading to many losing their money.

The alleged conmen claimed the company was a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) or an IT-enabled service operation.

So far around 90 complaints have been made to the Kompannaveediya police, nearly 1000 complaints to the Mt. Lavinia police and 15 complaints to the CFIB. The investigators are continuing on the 16,000 slots that have been sold. However The Sunday Times learns the numbers of slots sold is ten times more than the amount.

The Sunday Times learns that the company was registered on January 21 under bogus names given to the Registrar of Companies.

The names of the directors were given as Suppaya Pille Vijeyakumar and Gurunathan Kalaivani of 14/10 A, Elvitigala Mawatha, Colombo 8. The masterminds of the operations have been reportedly identified by the investigators as they believe the two to be Raj Kumar and Dominic who are said to be Indian citizens.

They are said to have illegally smuggled out of the country nearly Rs. 980 million, investigations revealed. Investigators believe the two may have used illegal means to get out of the country as there has been no official record of them leaving the country.

Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France has been notified of the scam and the two directors are now named as international fugitives.
Interpol sources told The Sunday Times that Raj Kumar had floated a company in Malaysia and carried out a similar racket. According to Interpol Dominic was wanted by authorities in some European countries for carrying out an online gambling scam running into millions of dollars. Interpol believed that Dominic was unable to repatriate the monies as the authorities had frozen most of his accounts.

Investigators are inquiring separately into the Bank accounts at the Nations Trust Bank (NTB) , ASP Nimal Ratnayake of the Fraud Bureau said.

It is learnt that NTB had an office in the alleged racketeers office in Mt. Lavinia for the convenience of the investors. The CFIB has frozen the NTB account of Rs. 1.6 million under the name of S.P Vijeyakumar.

However, Nations Trust Bank Chief Executive officer Zulficar Zavahir when contacted by The Sunday Times denied there was an NTB outlet inside the Seagull office but refused to comment any further over the investigation on the bank.

Sujith Prasan, a 19-year-old student who is one of the victims of the scam told The Sunday Times he came to know about the scheme through a leaflet distributed outside his school and by investing in the company he lost Rs. 650,000.

“To start with I bought one slot for which they paid me after 45 days. After that I started going for more. At the start I earned good money.

But later there was a notice on the Seagull website that said the site was under construction, so for nine days I didn’t have any work to do. But later this guy called Ashfaq sent an e-mail stating that the company had closed down,” he said.

Mohamed Akram who gave a statement to the Mt. Lavinia police said he had lost his entire savings by investing in slots.