Four arrested in Mumbai in connection with ₹30 crore Ponzi, multi-level marketing scheme

The Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) of the Economic Offences Wing of the Mumbai Police arrested four in connection with a company called AI Origin/Digital Origin on Thursday (August 13, 2026) and Friday (August 14, 2026), allegedly running a Ponzi/Multi-Level Marketing schemes and collecting over ₹30 crore in cash.

A case was filed under the relevant BNS Sections and the BUDS Act. Section 318(4) penalizes cheating (up to 7 years imprisonment), and Section 3(5) enforces joint liability for common intent. Under the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes (BUDS) Act, Sections 21 and 23 punish running, soliciting, or accepting unregulated deposits (ranging from 1 to 7 years imprisonment plus heavy fines), while Section 26 fines non-compliance with reporting mandates.

According to the police, the directors of the company, Shrikrishna Pandurang Chavan, Chairman & Executive Director, Ankush Shantaram Parte, Executive Director, and Subhash Yashwant Pandere, Executive Director, along with agents and others, were accepting illegal investments, even in the form of cash, promising continuous, fixed returns of 5-7% monthly, without obtaining any license/registration from the Reserve Bank of India or the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

People were allegedly lured by the illegal investment schemes via their website AIOrigin.in, through various WhatsApp groups, and in-person seminars organised across various districts in Maharashtra. The company, which has been running for a year also allegedly published advertisements promising additional returns through a ‘member joining’ mechanism.

This mechanism allegedly involves asking the investor to give the company ₹1,500 after which they will give the investor an app called ‘UPPI’ from which they can access their returns. However, they can only access their returns from the app after sharing the scheme to other people. For each person inducted to the app, the investor gets ₹3 to ₹5, which means they would need at least 70-80 people. They can then access the app after getting ₹500 on it.

They even allegedly took 60 of their agents on a paid trip to Thailand to recruit other people into their investments scheme. The company had already allegedly been working with over 3,000 investors.

The EIW also found that new offices of the company are allegedly operational in Thane, Palghar, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Sangli, and Kolhapur, and their operations were being run through agents in the states of Karnataka and Goa as well. Satara and Solapur offices were to be started on August 16th.

The police raided the offices of the alleged company in Vasai West in Palghar, Goregaon East and Malad East in Mumbai.

They even seized ₹12.08 lakh in cash, nine bank accounts’ passbooks, one BMW Motor Car, one Verna Car, and seven laptops/desktops.

The EIU investigation is ongoing.