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We Received ₹25,00,000 Legal Notice from Infinite Beacon – But Why?

Uncovering Infinite Beacon: A Ponzi Scheme in the Making?

While we've covered numerous Ponzi schemes over time, many of those cases came to light after investors lost their hard-earned money. However, in one specific case, Infinite Beacon, our team took a proactive approach based on numerous complaints from our subscribers who felt suspicious about the company’s practices.

Here’s what we discovered through our in-depth research.

Is Infinite Beacon Running a Ponzi Scheme?

Infinite Beacon, a company based in Pune, has been operating an extensive network of investment scams across various cities in Maharashtra and Goa. The company lures investors with promises of "guaranteed returns," but the reality is far from what they advertise.

Through our investigation, it became evident that Infinite Beacon is running a large-scale Ponzi scheme. New investors are being encouraged to invest money with the promise of high returns, but the company is not actually generating any real returns through legitimate investments. Instead, it relies on the capital from new investors to pay returns to earlier investors—classic Ponzi scheme behavior.

How We Got Involved

Our research into Infinite Beacon began after receiving multiple complaints from concerned subscribers. They reported suspicious practices, and many questioned the legitimacy of the company’s operations. After we posted a response to a Reddit inquiry about Infinite Beacon in March-April, we initially thought nothing of it. However, as often happens in such cases, those involved in wrongdoing tend to act out of fear when they sense exposure.

On May 31, 2024, we received an alarming email from Navanath Avatade, the Director of Infinite Beacon. The email claimed they had filed a complaint with the Cyber Crime Division in Pune and threatened to file an FIR against us for the Reddit post. The message also threatened legal action, including defamation suits and various other charges, many of which appeared to be speculative at best.

What struck us as most suspicious, however, was their offer to “settle.” They proposed that if we removed our post and refrained from publishing anything negative about them in the future, they would drop the matter entirely.

This act of intimidation only fueled our belief that something fraudulent was going on behind the scenes.

The Investigation Deepens

Our team took this as a clear sign that the company was operating under fraudulent conditions. We expanded our research by contacting Infinite Beacon’s clients and agents, trying to gather as much firsthand information as possible. To understand the full scope of their operations, we even became clients ourselves, investing in the very scheme that had raised so many red flags.

As we dug deeper, we began to uncover alarming evidence of the company's illegal practices. This included deceptive marketing tactics, misleading promises about guaranteed returns, and an overall lack of regulatory oversight.

What Did We Uncover? In our investigation, which took almost 2 months, we succeeded in uncovering a few points:

Infinite Beacon operates in association with a registered stockbroker Tradez and runs an investment scheme without any proper registration or license. The company has a vast network in Maharashtra, and Goa, and is expanding into North India. They lure people by promising guaranteed returns of 10% or more per month. Investors were asked to transfer funds directly to the company’s bank accounts, a major red flag. During our investigation, we attended several meetings and discovered that many of their clients were educated professionals who fell victim to greed. Now to collect investors’ funds, they had opened multiple current bank accounts.

Now all, this was happening without any registration or license. We attended a few meetings conducted by their agents and found that most of their clients were educated professionals.

This disappointed us a lot that in greed of earning quick gains how people end up losing their hard-earned money.

To get more into this, we talked to one of the clients. He told us how their agent creates inducement and mis-influence people to add more and more money. To gain trust, they provide returns as well.

That client himself added a fund of ₹11,00,000/- in a few installments but found it suspicious and asked for their PnL to verify the details. But they denied it. On this, that client withdrew his capital right away.

Luckily he identified the red flag but many could not and realized that they had been scammed after losing their money.

Next, we impersonate an investor and get in touch with one of the agents.

He told us how the whole scheme works and also disclosed the name of the Mother Company, Tradez, which is a SEBI-registered stock broker.

This means by taking the name of the SEBI-registered entity they were trying to run this fraudulent scheme.

The agent then provided us with a meeting link, where we received more detailed information.

During the meeting, the agent stated that the Portfolio Management Services (PMS) for clients were executed through Tradez. Further he added that the investments were managed by Infinite Beacon.

Through their presentation, they demonstrates how their investors and traders team creates value from the same.

Finally, by showing high returns, they convince investors to add a minimum ₹3 lakh – ₹5 lakh.

Of that return, 50% would be provided to investors, and the rest 50% would be kept by the company.

We realized that this scam was much bigger than it seems to be.

How We Discover the Connection between Infinite Beacon & Tradez Stock Broking? To find the connection between Infinite Beacon & Tradez, we file a complaint on SEBI SCORES & Smart ODR platforms. After 2-3 weeks, we received a reply from Tradez that they were not connected with Infinite Beacon.

But in the same reply, they mentioned that they were aware that Infinite Beacon had filed a complaint against us.

How?

This gave us a strong clue about the connection between the two firms. We then went to the MCA website where what we found, helped us in reaching a conclusion.

Three of the directors of both companies were common. Hence proved.

They Launched a Fake Website! In the sequence of events, something very interesting happened.

Just two days after we filed a complaint on SMART ODR against Infinite Beacon a domain was created on June 16, 2024, with the name rizeamc.com and displayed it as a Singapore-based company

However, this domain was registered on January 25, 2024, but was updated on June 24, 2024.

Within 9 days, on June 25, 2024, the website was published on this domain. This means, that the website didn’t exist before that and this could be easily checked through web archive history.

To gain trust and make it look authentic, Infinite Beacon ran many PR articles on top-notch newspapers including Times Now, Business World, Ahmedabad Mirror, etc.

Not only this, they displayed it on their homepage where they mentioned: “Powered by RiseAMC”, the company which didn’t even exist a few months back.

In a way, the company adopted new ways to loot people’s money.

A First-Hand Look into Infinite Beacon’s Operations To better understand the scheme, we decided to invest ₹10,000 in the Infinite Beacon platform. From the very start, we encountered several red flags that left us questioning why so many educated investors didn’t see the warning signs.

The first issue arose during the Know Your Customer (KYC) process. Aadhar is a crucial document for KYC verification, right? But, surprisingly, our KYC was completed without verifying our Aadhar details. To add to that, the bank proof we provided was incomplete, yet the process moved forward without issue.

Next, we received bank account details from the company’s agent and were asked to transfer our funds. Once we transferred the money, we were granted access to the Infinite Beacon dashboard, where we could view our investment amount.

After about a week, we noticed something strange—our ₹10,000 had grown to ₹10,351.34, a 3.5% return on our investment. At first glance, this might seem like a legitimate return, but this is a classic red flag for Ponzi schemes, where returns are paid from new investor funds rather than legitimate profits.

The Real Truth Behind the Returns While the dashboard showed a profit, the money had not been deposited into our bank account. Instead, it remained in the company’s account. What’s more, there were specific terms and conditions that made it difficult to withdraw the amount. In essence, this was not real profit—it was part of a fake system designed to keep investors hooked.

It became clear: Infinite Beacon was operating an illegal Ponzi scheme. The "returns" were not from any legitimate investments but from the money of new investors, a textbook Ponzi structure.

The Endgame: When the Scam Collapses So, what happens to schemes like these?

Ponzi schemes typically run until the mastermind has collected enough money to disappear, or until some form of external pressure—such as media exposure or an investigation—forces them to shut down. As these schemes grow, trust among new investors begins to erode, and they struggle to provide returns to existing investors.

Ultimately, the company is left with no choice but to vanish with the capital of investors. Because these unregistered entities do not actually invest the funds they receive, the money simply circulates between new and old investors in a never-ending loop. The chain continues until the company is no longer able to operate, leaving investors with nothing.

For those who transferred funds directly into the scammers’ accounts (rather than through secure banking channels), there is no hope of recovery. The money is lost, and there is no recourse.

Key Takeaways: Protect Yourself From Ponzi Schemes This experience with Infinite Beacon highlights the importance of understanding the risks before investing your hard-earned money. Ponzi schemes may appear enticing with promises of quick and guaranteed returns, but they are ultimately built on deception and fraud.

It is critical for investors to recognize the warning signs:

Unclear or incomplete KYC processes Promises of guaranteed returns with little to no risk Difficulty withdrawing funds Lack of proper regulatory oversight If a company or investment platform seems too good to be true, it likely is.

We strongly advise anyone considering an investment in unregulated or questionable platforms to proceed with extreme caution. Protect your capital by doing thorough research, asking questions, and verifying the legitimacy of the company before parting with your money.

Remember: A Ponzi scheme can’t continue forever. Eventually, it will collapse, and those who remain at the end of the chain will bear the losses.

Hazel Shinkle

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Lars Kling and His Businesses File Defamation Lawsuits Against OCCRP and IrlMacedonia Over Credit Suisse Investigation

Lars Kling and his businesses Korona Internacional & Fortuna International filed 5 lawsuits for defamation & moral damage vs. @OCCRP @IrlMacedonia for a doc about Credit Suisse, part of an international investigation into dubious accounts & illegitimate funds.

These legal actions were in response to a documentary produced by OCCRP and IrlMacedonia that investigated Credit Suisse, focusing on dubious accounts and illegitimate funds. The lawsuits allege defamation and moral damage.

The documentary in question is part of an international investigation into questionable financial activities, highlighting potential misconduct within Credit Suisse. The legal actions taken by Kling and his businesses underscore the contentious nature of investigative journalism, especially when it involves powerful financial institutions.

As of now, there is limited publicly available information regarding the outcomes of these lawsuits. The case highlights the ongoing challenges faced by investigative journalists and media organizations when reporting on sensitive financial matters.

Hazel Shinkle