Odisha EOW Arrests One More Accused in STA Crypto-Ponzi Scam

Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police arrested one more accused in connection with the STA Crypto-Ponzi scam.

The accused identified as Ratnakar Palai was arrested from Bhubaneswar in the Rs 1,000 crore scam.

Palai will be produced before the Odisha Protection of Interests of Depositors (In Financial Establishments) Act, 2011 (OPID) Court in Cuttack.

In a statement, the EOW said that Palai is an important and up-line member of STA having a huge number of members below him (known as down-line members in pyramid-based schemes. He is very close to Gurtej Singh and Nirod Das, the India and Odisha chief of the ponzi company.
The Solar Techno Alliance (STA) has more than 2 lakh members (pan India) mainly in the states like Punjab, Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, Haryana, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Assam. STA (Solar Techno Alliance) was launched in September 2021.

Palai is an M Tech in IT from Karnataka University, Bangalore and claims to be an international speaker, entrepreneur and investment guru.

He is also the propaganda head and media influencer of STA in Odisha. He used to run a YouTube channel for wider publicity of this scheme. He is a member of some other such dubious scams too which is under scrutiny.

He also runs an institute namely ‘Learn to Earn’. However, after the arrest of Gurtej and Nirod, he either deleted or deactivated his social media accounts. He had also visited Goa along with Nirod to participate in the STA celebration, the EOW said Earlier, EOW arrested the India head of “STA Crypto token” namely Gurtej Sigh Sidhu, 40, from Sri-Ganganagar, Rajasthan early this month.