Ponzi scheme nips career of soldier

Greed to make fast buck through money circulation scheme led to his fall

·         Poddar enrolls members in Amway and securedlives.com

·         Starts online campaign to rope in members

·         Pakistan spy induces him with naked photos

  The menace of money circulation scheme has taken its toll on the career of a soldier, Patan Kumar Poddar, who was arrested on Wednesday on charges of enticing people to join a ponzi scheme and in the transaction was honey-trapped by a foreign spy.

Poddar joined a dubious company which has been running a ponzi scheme for the last few years and started enticing his colleagues to join the scheme to make a fast buck. He started posting the business proposals on his Facebook profile. Interestingly, Poddar is also a member of Amway India Enterprises.

His position in the Army attracted the foreign spy who introduced herself as Anushka Agarwal and started flirting with him online. She claimed that she was studying M Sc in Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh. She offered to utilise his services for an online survey offering a remuneration of Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 per month. She started paying amounts regularly in various accounts of Poddar.

The spy had gone ahead to entertain him and posted her naked pictures and he started giving her a lot of information regarding the movement of field and medium regiments on the Western border and photographs of missile units. She had even sent a link to be installed in his office computer with which she could access any classified information without his knowledge.

The AP High Court had rightly said on the writ petition filed by Amway India way back in 2007 that inducement for aggressive enrollment of new members to earn more and more commission was inherent in the scheme of Amway India.

Subedar confesses to passing on defence secrets 

* Info on top 40 Army officers and their movements in Rajastan shared with the Pakistani Facebook friend

* Army denies he was in EME

* Tight security in Army units in TS, Chennai

* Pakistani mole reported to have transferred Rs 70,000-80,000 to his bank account

 Naik Subedar Patan Kumar Poddar of Army’s EME unit in Secunderabad who was arrested by Central Crime Station on Wednesday reportedly told the police that he had passed on the information of about 40 top army officials and their movements in Rajasthan to his facebook friend Anushka Aggarwal.

In a quick move, the EME on Thursday in a statement said that they had nothing to do with Patan and that he was not in EME.

A top police officer who was investigating the case said that Anushka had introduced herself as a scholar for getting insights into the country’s security details. She sought details of missile storage and other army positions in the country. Patan had revealed details of regiments and artillery centres in Secunderabad.

The police are also investigating the espionage issue and verifying the email and Facebook accounts. Sources said that they had already decoded some of the information on which they could lay their hands on.

Speculations were rife during day that National Intelligence and Army Intelligence agencies had sought the custody of Patan but police said that they had not received any such requests. If they wish to get his custody they have to approach the Court. “It is our case and we shall handle this,” said an Assistant Commissioner of police.

Police denied that Rs 10 lakh was transferred by Anushka to the account of Patan. They claim that about Rs 70,000-80,000 was transferred to his SBI account in Kolkata.

It is said that following  Patan’s revelation of sensitive information to Anushka  the security at the Army units of Telangana and Chennai had been beefed up. All the important units were shuffling their personnel in the region, sources added.