Hyderabad: The Cyberabad police’s economic offences wing arrested three persons on Monday, in connection with a multi-crore investment fraud orchestrated by Chinese nationals. The Cyberabad CP VC Sajjanar on Monday said that they allegedly cheated over 20,000 citizens across the country to the tune of Rs. 50 crores.

The police seized deposits valued at Rs. three crore in 10 bank accounts and other incriminating documents from them. Two Chinese nationals Zhang Hongwei alias Peter, and Peng Guowei alias Javie, are absconding, he said. The accused persons promised returns up to 11 per cent per day and four times the investment within a 90-day period. They coaxed victims into investing in Shared Bike and Sharing Economy schemes via www.ciciseo.com, popularly known as Shared BK App, said CP.

Sajjanar also said “We will seek help from premier agencies like the RBI Financial Intelligence Unit, Intelligence Bureau and other enforcement wings to dig deep into the case”. Police said that in 2016, one of the accused Uday Pratap was working for China-based Top1Mobi Technology Company Ltd., which at the time had no presence in India. Its Business Lead for India, Javie, appointed him as a consultant for Telecom Value Added and Advertising Services in the country. Both of them worked together for four years, and later acquired Mobicentric Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Uday was made an authorised signatory for Mobicentric Technologies Pvt. Ltd and others.

Later, these companies were acquired by Hong Kong-based companies, and Javie was their director. In 2020, Javie hired Peter, the owner of Panda Overseas (Asia) Ltd., which is said to have acquired Flash Wave. Police said the accused had launched a Shared Bike app, and began cheating people by contacting them on Skype and WhatsApp. On verification with the Registrar of Companies (RoC), police found that the companies were fake. All of them were registered with RoCs at Delhi, Kanpur, Pune and Bengaluru, he said.