Jalandhar ED makes arrest in Rs 2,200-crore 'cloud particle' scam

The Enforcement Director team from Jalandhar has arrested one Arif Nisar for his alleged involvement in the Rs 2,200 crore investment scam of selling cloud particles. His arrest has been made from a hotel near the IGI Airport in Delhi and he was brought to Jalandhar office on Tuesday morning.

The accused was produced in the PMLA court of Special Judge Nirbhow S Gill. The ED has got his remand till March 4. The ED has been investigating the case against four companies — Veunow Marketing Services Ltd (VMSL), Zebyte Infotech Pvt Ltd (ZIPL), VIPL and ZRPPL. Arif was a 75 per cent shareholder in ZIPL and as per ED investigations, he was among the key persons who cheated gullible investors.

As per reports, ZIPL had shown fake purchases of servers from bogus firms and diverted the proceeds of crime to shell entities in the guise of fake purchases of servers. Arif used to reportedly organise events to attract investors and dupe them into buying the cloud particles. He had reportedly received an amount of Rs 3.24 crore between January 2020 to December 2022 from all four companies being investigated.

The ED Jalandhar team had made the seizures during search operations conducted on January 17 at 11 locations in Gurugram, Panchkula, Jind, Mohali and Mumbai at residential and business premises of Vuenow Infratech Limited and related entities. The team seized four SUVs and two bikes. The ED had initiated investigation on the basis of an FIR registered by the Gautam Budh Nagar (Noida) police in Uttar Pradesh under various sections of the BNS.