Hyderabad: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) team of Hyderabad’s Central Crime Station (CCS) police station arrested five accused linked to the QNET multilevel marketing scheme from a resort in Goa.Acting on the complaint of Sardar Sharanpal Singh, a fitness trainer, who alleged that he was approached on Instagram by one of the accused, Mohammed Fawaz, while searching for gym space in Hyderabad.Singh alleged that he was invited to Bengaluru by Fawaz under the guise of a business opportunity. In Bengaluru, the accused showed him fabricated success testimonials of investors in their QNET (Vihaan Direct Selling India Pvt Ltd) luxury-goods business sales scheme and tried to convince him to invest ₹7.5 lakh in the business.“I was forced to pay ₹30,000 upfront to secure a spot at a leadership event organised by them in Goa. Later, when I discussed the scheme with family and friends, they told me that it was a fraudulent scheme. I verified QNET’s background independently and found it repeatedly linked to money-circulation fraud,” the complainant told police.Acting on specific information that several QNET representatives would attend an anniversary event at a Goa resort, police tracked the movements of the suspects and arrested five of them — Mohammed Fawaz, Aswin Suresh, Vinu Johnson D’Cruz, Manoj Ravindran Nair and Varikottuchalil Sivarajan Balraj, all from Kerala — at a resort in Candolim on Tuesday. The accused were later produced before a local magistrate in Goa and then brought to Hyderabad on a transit warrant on Wednesday.Police seized three SUVs and five mobile phones from the accused. They were booked under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act and the IT Act. The accused were produced before the local court and remanded in judicial custody.
