The companies used the name of US-based famous crypto expert Balaji Srinivasan and launched ‘HPZ Token’, a cryptocurrency, to dupe thousands across the country by collecting crores of rupees.
Investigations on the ground have revealed that a shell firm, Abhayahasta Information Services, which has no office in the registered address, received a huge chunk of Rs 42 crore of scam money into its account.
The scamsters collected money from thousands of individuals assuring that their money would be used for mining HPZ Token.
It is alleged that Delhi-based Lillian Technocab Private Limited and Shigoo Technology Private Ltd collected deposits from investors in the name of HPZ Token.
After collecting the money, the website, www.hpztoken.com, and the app were shut down. TOI made use of Wayback Machine (a digital archive of the World Wide Web) and retrieved the pages of HPZ Token which used the name and photograph of Srinivasan and asked people to invest money. HPZ Token website also falsely claimed that it was associated with American bitcoin mining company, 21 Inc.
When gullible depositors began tagging Srinivasan in August 2021 stating that they had lost their money, he replied on Twitter asserting that he had nothing to do with HPZ Token.
Investigations have revealed that Lillian Technocab was operating HPZ Token….
