Anubhav Mittal- a name that is at the tip of everyone’s tongue and has people going berserk all over the country. Yesterday, a multimillionaire with a strong social following, today he is the center of a scandalous Ponzi scheme.
But who exactly is Anubhav Mittal?
26 years old Anubhav Mittal is Managing Director of a company named Ablaze Info Solutions Private Limited based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. He is currently in the news because of the alleged scam of Rs.3700 crore in an online fraud through SocialTrade.Biz. He is native of Hapur, Uttar Pradesh.
Early Life and Education
Anubhav Mittal completed his school education in his hometown Hapur from KMS Public Inter College, Pilkhuwa. He is an engineering Alumni of Skyline Institute of Engg & Technology, Greater Noida (UPTU) where he did B.Tech in Computer Science in 2011. He has also done Diploma in VLSI Design and Embedded Systems from I2IT, Pune and after that did his MBA in finance from IMT – CDL Ghaziabad.
The Phunsukh Wangdu of his College
According to his personal website anubhavmittal.in (currently down), he has lot of computing abilities in ASP.NET, MS SQL, UNIX, C, OOPS, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, Embedded C, Photoshop, SEO, SMO, Plesk Control, Javascript, Jquery, Ethical Hacking and Networks. In an interview, Anubhav said that He was called Phunsukh Wangdu among his college friends. Phunsukh Wangdu is a genius fictional character which was played by Aamir Khan’s in 3 Idiots
First Venture
He curated his first company by setting up an office in his hostel room in Knowledge Park area working as a software developer. Even the paltry return of 4 lakhs on investment didn’t deter Mittal, and he kept on exploring other areas.
The Success
All the hard work paid off as Mittal kept his nose to the grindstone by doing odd jobs and achieving something of value by August 2015. He devised an ingenious ‘online barter system’ and a web address, socialtrade.biz which has currently been filed for charges of embezzlement and fraud.
His company asserts that they played the role of an online middle man accumulating likes for small businesses and startups on Facebooks. This brought in potential investors. This portal was running successfully for more than a year. According to various sources, 7 to 12 lakh people were associated with this company under various available plans which cost Rs.5750 to Rs.150,000 to join the portal. Almost 100 employees were working for him at his office in Noida. Know more about SocialTrade.biz here.
The Lavish LifeStyle
During initial interrogation, Anubhav Mittal has revealed that he owns many cars and flats in many realty firms. He loves glitzy cars and parties. He has invited pornstar-turned-Bollywood actor Sunny Leone and actor Amisha Patel last year in his birthday party.
Association With BJP?
While supporting Anubhav Mittal at the Jantar Mantra Protest on 6th February 2017. Many supporters claimed that he is being accused by SP government in Uttar Pradesh because of his close association with Bhartiya Janta Party. Though there is no valid proof of such claims but there are few pictures shared by Social Trade Facebook page where Anubhav Mittal can be seen with few central ministers.
According to the Facebook post, Anubhav Singh met the honorable home minister of India Mr. Rajnath Singh for donating INDIAN ARMY Rs.10,00,000 from his personal fund.
Similarly, he can also be seen with Shri. P.P. Choudhary Ji, Hon. Union Minister of State, Ministry of Law and Justice; and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India.
The Scam, The Slammer, and The Reaction
The scam received televised attention with the arrest of Mittal and his two accomplices- 40-year-old Shridhar Prasad, an MBA, and 25-year-old Mahesh Dayal, who served as tech support- from their Noida office.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts4iEdoBXIo
The trio has been charged with exploiting the naive nature of people and swindling them by offering money by only clicking links.
Links would be sent to people through messages by a fake server under the banner ‘Ablaze Info Solutions’ leading to Twitter and Facebook subscription links. Many had accused the company of not receiving payments on time and using them.
Over 250 passports, cash bundles and a lot of other evidence was uncovered in the arrest which could be incriminating. However, a whole new twist came to the story as some investor groups condemned the crackdown, affirming that they were receiving timely payments.
Rest assured, only time will tell how this scandal advances. For the time being, his story might just be the next Vijay Malaya crowd-puller that the media is looking for.
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