New Delhi: He claimed to be the “seventh biggest trader” in the New York stock market, with deep pockets and a penchant for developing “swadeshi apps” that he promised could mint money for Indian investors.
Neel Patel, 41, a son of Gujarat and an apparent American success story, seemed like a solid bet when he came to prominence on India’s Twitter scene in 2020.
He flaunted pictures of his palatial US residence on social media, had a verified account with thousands of followers, including police officers, ministers and journalists, and had prominent “Right-wing” handles lauding his championing of “Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India)” at a time when tensions with China and a movement to boycott Chinese products were at their peak. Potential investors had no reason to doubt his credentials.
And spend they did: in a payment gateway app called NaaradPay, a Twitter-wannabe social media app named Squeaks, a scheme for cheap iPhones and other electronics, a scholarship programme for students, an eGyaan course on stocks, a forex trading platform dealing in Ethereum and Bitcoin, and several other purported investment schemes. Patel promised massive returns and even jobs and hundreds of people believed him.
But then, he suddenly shut shop, refusing to return people’s money.
Some investors claimed they had mortgaged their property and jewellery to put money in his schemes in the hopes of big profits, but ended up losing lakhs. When they asked for their returns, Patel allegedly threatened and even blackmailed them. The losses were huge, but the shock was even greater.
“He had a blue tick on Twitter. He posted pictures with officials of the Army. IPS [Indian Police Service] officers supported his initiatives of introducing indigenous apps, so many Right-wing leaders tweeted about him,” a Hyderabad-based IT professional, who said he mortgaged his house to invest over Rs 65 lakh in Patel’s schemes, told ThePrint. “How would a common man know that he is a fraud?”
Multiple FIRs have been registered against Patel across the country since the allegations came to light last year, including in Bihar, Odisha, Gujarat, Karnataka, Haryana, and Telangana, and the police believe that the alleged scam runs into crores.
Last month, the Cyber Crime Unit of Hyderabad Police arrested Patel’s father, Gordhanbhai Patel, in Ahmedabad while he was allegedly trying to flee to Uganda.
Thanks to @TSPCybercrime and @DCPSouthBCP for arresting the father of Scammer Neel Patel and for working in the case proactively pic.twitter.com/BibRYW7zfQ
— Anish (@Aniiiiish) February 20, 2022
“Over 20 complaints have been filed against Patel across the country. There could be more than 200 victims, who could have lost Rs 15 crore-20 crore [in total],” a source in the Hyderabad Police said. “According to the three complaints received by us, one person lost Rs 65 lakh, another lost Rs 38 lakh, and one lost Rs 5 lakh. There are many such cases in other states too.”
But, who really is Neel Patel, and what exactly are the accusations against him?
ThePrint accessed FIRs from across states, tracked down a dozen complainants — including college students, IT professionals, software engineers, and even stockbrokers, some of whom lost money in more than one scheme — and spoke to investigators to untangle the alleged multi-crore-rupee web of scams.
Neel Patel, meanwhile, told ThePrint that he was “not worried” about the allegations. “Nothing I did is illegal,” he said. “Being accused doesn’t mean someone is a criminal, until it is proven by a court of law.”
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Cheap iPhones, Bitcoin, ‘bait-and-switch’
According to police sources, Neel Patel, also known as Hitesh Kumar Gordhanbhai Patel, was born in Gujarat and is currently living in Louisville, Kentucky, USA.
Over a phone call, the 1980-born Patel told ThePrint that he studied in Gandhinagar until Class 12 and then went on to study for a pharmacy degree at the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences in Karnataka. Following this, he returned to Gandhinagar and, in 2004, set up “a call centre with 108 employees”.
This business folded within a couple of years, according to Patel, because a major client failed to make payments worth Rs 4 crore.
“In 2006, I left for Malaysia. Until around 2009-2010, I spent time between Malaysia and Singapore,” he said, adding that he started a business called Phoenix Global Services that provided telecommunications and call services over the internet.
In 2010, Patel started looking west and got a business visa to Canada where he set up a company, also called Phoenix Global Services.
“Using the company, I applied for a transfer from Canada to the US, as an employed director of the company,” he said.
Things get a little fuzzy from here, but Patel decided to explore opportunities in India around 2020.
What is certain is that his influence in the Indian Twitterverse started growing around the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. This was facilitated by his verified Twitter account, which was allegedly purchased from a hacker.
He has bought his @verified Twitter handle from the band “night terrors of 1927” that is why it’s handle is @nto1927.
He is so lousy that he hasn’t even deleted the old tweets 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/WfdjlAIKti— Nishant (@nishant_india) February 15, 2021
Patel’s now-deleted Twitter account flogged a variety of hardware, apps, Bitcoin schemes, and various other offers and opportunities, often flavoured with nationalistic sentiments.
By October 2020, Patel’s promotions for NaaradPay and Squeaks — his so-called “indigenous apps” and their websites — were getting traction on social media, especially as they were accompanied by a flurry of other schemes, including for Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Patel also reportedly offered to sell iPhones at a 50 per cent discount through his Squeaks Media app. These claims seemed credible because several Twitter users announced that they had received the promised goods.
@nto1927 bhai thank so much for the offer @SqueaksMedia phone delivered today !!! Love to have the same offer again !!
By the way phone is Assembled in India 🇮🇳 @nto1927 🤝Trust.
& Waiting for the Squeaks App!!! pic.twitter.com/oBNvnmujfK— Venkatesh Amidal (@AmidalVenkatesh) February 12, 2021
“People fell for this scheme as many others, including some influencers, got the phones and started posting about it online. But that was just a bait to gain people’s trust and attract more investment. That is how I fell for it,” a complainant from Hyderabad said.
According to FIRs accessed by ThePrint, Patel then started a course called eGyaan on financial independence and stock market trading for which he charged Rs 45,000. In return, he promised a two-year job, which would pay Rs 50,000 for the first three months and then Rs 1 lakh for remaining 21. Besides this, Patel also promised a tablet from Samsung, free recharge on one SIM for five years, and a certified trader licence from a third party.
“My wife took this offer as we thought it would help us during the pandemic to make some money,” a complainant from Hyderabad, who lost over Rs 12 lakh in this scheme and more money in others, told ThePrint.
The online course in question allegedly turned out to be a classic bait-and-switch enterprise.
“He provided some training online for the first three months, which my wife attended. During these classes, he told students that it was a good time to invest in cryptocurrency. He advised that they should invest in Ethereum through his Squeaks website,” the complainant said.
Patel also promised his students that they would “easily” get three- to four-fold returns within three months through his auto-trading platform Coinsgenius, the complainant added.
Patel allegedly sold 1 coin between Rs 46,000 and Rs 80,000, and most students invested gladly. However, when people started asking about returns in a few months, Patel’s tune allegedly changed.
“When people started asking for their returns, he started dodging questions. Once he also said that his $500,000 (approx. Rs 3.79 crore) was stuck with the RBI, which was not giving clearance to his money. When people started questioning him, he snapped all ties and went offline,” the complainant alleged.
A complainant from Karnataka told ThePrint about how Patel “fielded initial queries about his schemes by boasting about his wealth”.
“When we asked him how he would repay us double the amount, he would say that he is here to earn goodwill for his company and this is a part of his advertising,” the Karnataka complainant said. “He also said that he earns this amount in just a day in the US stock market and he is paying a very little price.”
A data scientist from Odisha, who invested in this scheme in the hopes of three-fold returns, said Patel made a “demo account for the transactions” but the promised profits never appeared.
According to a complainant from Ghaziabad in UP, in January 2021, Patel came up with a new scheme for Bitcoin trade. He allegedly asked people to purchase Bitcoins from his company by depositing money into the bank accounts of Squeaks Technology. Many people fell for this too.
Several complainants said Patel urged people to invest a minimum of Rs 10 lakh in order to get back crores since Bitcoin block trading is done on a bigger scale and “it’s an easy way to multiply money”.
Another tactic that Patel allegedly employed was to lure people into investing in his social media app.
“He asked us to deposit an amount into Squeaks’ Bank of Baroda account, telling us that it will be used as investment to develop a social media app,” one of the complainants from Hyderabad said.
“He said we will get very good returns within a few months because he would invest this amount somewhere called ‘Forex Genius’ and we will get 15 per cent monthly [returns] after three months. I deposited Rs 12 lakh in this.”
Patel also allegedly told his students that if they paid $100 (approx. Rs 7,600) or more, they would get 10x credit in BULLRUN — which he said was a dummy forex trading platform.
“He claimed that, for instance, if someone pays $100, he will give a credit of $1,000 in the BULLRUN for trading. This too was found to be a fraudulent scheme,” a complainant from Odisha who works in the sales team of an automobile company said.
Pay-to-sign-up schemes, PowerPoint presentations, scholarships
Another business that Patel allegedly promoted was his NaaradPay app, which he claimed was an “indigenous” payment gateway app.
According to several complainants, he asked people to download the app and pay Rs 30,000 as an advance in order to get returns. In this scheme, he allegedly promised people that they would get Rs 5,000 in their wallet every month for 12 months, and could use this money to make purchases and pay bills.
“People thought they could get Rs 60,000 by paying Rs 30,000, so there were many customers. Many also put in money in this as investors, thinking it is a Make in India initiative,” a Hyderabad-based complainant, who invested over Rs 20 lakh in the app, said.
“He came up with PowerPoint presentations and detailed plans to show how investors would get three times of what they invest in just three years,” he added.
According to the complainant, the said wallet seemed to work smoothly and all the money invested in September 2020 was recovered within five months. This gained the trust of customers who went on to “refer the scheme to friends and family, who were not necessarily as fortunate”.
In another similar scheme, Patel allegedly asked people to pay Rs 15,000 at the time of sign-up for a free Samsung M51 phone and a Rs 3,333 deposit every month for bill payments.
“I took around 15 wallets for my friends and family which cost Rs 2.25 lakh. This amount was recovered using wallets. But the Samsung M51 mobile phone was never delivered,” the same complainant from Hyderabad said.
Patel also introduced special schemes for students, in the form of “scholarship plans”.
“He asked us to purchase a scholarship plan from Squeaks for Rs 49,999. He said I would get a laptop and scholarship of Rs 5,000 per month from Squeaks for three years,” a student from Gujarat, who invested in the scheme by borrowing money, said.
‘He had access to all our personal information’
Some complainants allege that when they started asking for their money back, Patel started “threatening and abusing” them.
“He made us download the NaaradPay app and through that got access to our phones — including our galleries, which have private pictures and videos,” one of the Hyderabad complainants said.
“We have a Telegram group where all investors are present. When we started asking for our money and threatened to lodge a police complaint, he started abusing us. He told us that I will show you magic… and we were shocked to see how he had access to all the personal information of people in that group,” he added.
This complainant further alleged that Patel threatened a woman by saying he would put her pictures on the dark web, after which she backtracked. “This man did not just loot people but also blackmailed them,” he added.
According to this complainant, some people had not come forward to the police because they feared for their lives.
“There are many people who do not want to complain against him now because of his threats. Once he also hinted that he can give a contract for killing using Bitcoins and anyone who complains will be found dead in a nullah,” he alleged.
This complainant showed ThePrint screenshots of conversations and voice notes purportedly from Patel. The voice can be heard abusing people and challenging them to lodge complaints against him.
Patel, however, said that while he did owe some money, he had only asked for time to return it.
“Yes, I do have some clients’ and investors’ money with me. There is about Rs 3.72 crore rupees left that I need to pay back to them. I never said ‘no’ or that I won’t pay it back. All I had asked was for time to pay it back,” Patel told ThePrint.
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‘Got swayed, on the verge of a breakdown’
Many of Patel’s alleged victims said they were “swayed” by Patel’s aura of influence.
One complainant, for instance, said Patel bragged about his prominent family and connections with politicians, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Hyderabad-based complainant who claims his wife invested more than Rs 12 lakh in one of Patel’s schemes said the atmosphere in the country in 2020 also made them more susceptible.
“That was the time when the India-China tensions were on and there was a slogan of self-reliance and ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ doing the rounds. Chinese apps had been banned and the use of Indian apps was being encouraged. During this time, we came across Neel Patel,” he said.
The verified handle made it easy to believe in Patel’s schemes. “He was talking about Squeaks app, an Indian alternative for Twitter and Facebook, and was being promoted by all Right-wing handles, including police officers,” the complainant said, adding that he is now “on the verge of a breakdown”.
Another of the Hyderabad complainants also said he was taken in by how influential Patel seemed. “We saw on Twitter that he was attending Zoom meetings with influencers and policymakers on the need for made-in-India apps… how would a common man know that he is running a scam?”
The second complainant from Odisha, who said he invested Rs 5.6 lakh in Patel’s schemes, said he followed various “Right-wing accounts” and saw tweets about the cheap iPhone offer. “It is only later I realised that the iPhone scheme was just a bait for a larger fraud that he had planned,” he said.
As Patel’s alleged misdeeds came to light last year, the handles that promoted his schemes, instantly distanced themselves from him.
Major Surendra Poonia, a former special forces officer and sportsman, wrote that he had no connection with Patel and only promoted Squeaks because it was a “swadeshi platform”.
Dear Friends,I don’t have any connection/link with @nto1927 . I just supported his social media platform because it was an Indian/Swadeshi platform & his donations for poor needy ill citizens who needed medical treatments.
— Major Surendra Poonia (@MajorPoonia) February 16, 2021
Nupur Sharma of OpIndia wrote a long update on her transactions with Patel. She claimed that after learning of the scam allegations, she asked Patel for his bank details to credit back money for two iPhones she had redeemed against gift cards received from his social media venture. The two iPhones were said to be meant for OpIndia official work.
Before receiving Patel’s response, Sharma says she transferred money for the two iPhones to his business associate Sunaina Holey, an RSS worker who after learning of the fraud accusations allegedly stopped working with him.
Statement on the recent Mr Neel fiasco pic.twitter.com/qapUE6HomM
— Nupur J Sharma (@UnSubtleDesi) February 16, 2021
The BJP’s Tajinder Bagga had previously engaged with Patel’s account @nto1927 on Twitter, wishing him a happy birthday and congratulating him on his wedding.
Happy Birthday Neel bhai @nto1927
— Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga (@TajinderBagga) May 18, 2020
When the fraud allegations started rolling in and Twitter users started trolling Bagga, he claimed he did not know Patel.
Dr Monika Langeh, who is followed by PM Modi on Twitter, said she only promoted Patel’s social media venture because it was an Indian platform, and she had not received any gift or iPhone in return.
My dear friends I have no association with @SqueaksMedia and @nto1927. I promoted only because Neel claimed its Indian SM platform. Neither I received any kind of gift nor the iphone mentioned in squeaks contest. I stopped promoting and using Squeaks when I came to know ..
— Dr.Monika Langeh (@drmonika_langeh) February 14, 2021
Another Twitter user, @desimojito, who had received an iPhone from Patel, later said he had no financial association with Patel or his venture, and the intention was to promote an Indian business.
To whomsoever it may concern 🙏
Cc : @nto1927 pic.twitter.com/e1xXETK5EI
— Mohit Gulati 🇮🇳 (@desimojito) February 16, 2021
The BJP’s Kapil Mishra had tweeted a thank you to Patel for a donation of Rs 1 lakh and had encouraged Twitter users to follow Squeaks.
Now, many complainants have approached the Prime Minister’s Office to take action against Patel. “We really wish that the government takes cognisance of this multi-crore fraud and gets Patel back [to India],” the first complainant from Odisha said.
The investigation so far
According to police sources, the company Squeaks Technology is registered in the name of Gordhanbhai Patel, the father of Neel Patel. In the wake of complaints, the Hyderabad Police issued a lookout notice for the 70-year old. The police say they have found that a lot of money was sent to his accounts, and that in the last two years he spent much more than he had earned.
“About Rs 15 lakh-20 lakh was used to renovate his house in a Gujarat village and for personal expenses last year. He got an elevator in the house, renovated it in a lavish way,” Inspector Gangadhar Chanda from the Hyderabad Cyber Crime Unit told ThePrint.
“The senior Patel was absconding for three months. On 7 February, when he was planning to leave for Uganda from Ahmedabad, he was arrested,” Chanda added.
According to the police, several local investors who were allegedly duped had also confronted Patel at his village home last August.
“The local residents gathered at his house on 11 August last year. He promised them that he would give them back their money in four months or so. And then, he fled,” Chanda said.
The police said that they are interrogating Gordhanbhai Patel and have sought details of his bank accounts. Various state police departments are also coordinating with each other on the case, since all FIRs are connected.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
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Source: The Print
