CBI takes over UP Bike Bot scam, lodges FIR against firm and promoters

New Delhi, Nov 1 (IANS) The Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI) on Monday took over the Bike Bot scam of Uttar Pradesh and registered an FIR against the company and its promoters on the request of the state government.

The CBI stated that over 200,000 investors were duped of over Rs 15,000 crore which is bigger than the Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam of Rs 13,000 crore.

The probe agency named Chief Managing Director Sanjay Bhati of the company along with 14 others.

Launched in August 2017, the accused had allegedly floated a ponzi scheme in the name of Bike Bot, supposedly a bike-taxi service, where an investor could invest in one, three, five or seven bikes, operated by the company.

The promoters promised that the investor would be paid monthly rent, EMI and bonus in case of investment in multiple bikes and further incentives on adding additional investors in the investors' chain system.

The accused also allegedly allotted franchises in various cities but in reality the bike taxies hardly operated in these cities.

According to the CBI officials, money was collected from the gullible customers and repayments to them continued till early 2019 after which it was stopped.

The promoters of Bike Bot launched another scheme in 2018 for e-bikes, stating that the petrol bikes were facing issues related to registration and operation and took almost double the investment amounts taken for petrol bikes.

The FIR also stated that in the Bike-Taxi scheme, an investor had to pay Rs 62,100 for attachment of one bike, its EMI was Rs 5175 per month, bike rent was fixed at Rs 4590 per bike per month.

The CBI FIR also stated that in order to extract money from investors the company published advertisements for the bike-taxi scheme and about 200,000 people invested money. However, the scam was unearthed and the investors complaints against the fraudulent activities of the company was in the knowledge of the Noida district police authorities who did not take any action. The SSP and SP crime branch allegedly pressurised the complainants to withdraw their complaints, read the CBI FIR.