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SRINAGAR, INDIAN ADMINISTERED KASHMIR —Muneer Ahmad Sofi, a 25-year-old salesman, received a call in September from an unknown number. The caller identified herself as an employee of Curative Survey Private Limited, a startup company on the Indian side of Kashmir.
The woman briefed Sofi about the company, saying it was involved in conducting surveys before introducing cosmetic products. She gained Sofi's trust and invited him to join an online survey after creating an account on the company's official website or mobile application.
"She also said that I could invest money in their company and make huge profits," Sofi told VOA. "I spoke to my friends, and they replied that this could be a scam, but I told them that the company might be involved in the stock market," he said.
Sofi said he visited their office in the Karan Nagar neighborhood of Srinagar the next day, and staff showed him how to operate the mobile application.
Curative Survey Private Limited, according to Sofi, charged $60 to open an account. He said that the company paid him $75 for answering 20 questions within the next 15 days.
"To make more and more money quickly I invested around $3,600 until mid-December," Sofi said. "On 15 December when I tried to withdraw some money, I was shocked to see that my account details and other information were changed. I called the staff members but they didn't respond," he said, adding that he went to the office and discovered it was abandoned.
Curative Survey Private Limited, according to local media reports, turned out to be a scam worth $709.45 million. The scam is seen as a real-life version of a popular Bollywood movie in Kashmir, "Phir Hera Pheri." The characters of the movie were seen facing financial difficulties. As a result, they invested in a scheme that promised double returns in 21 days. The scheme in the movie turns out to be a fraud.
Nafi Javaid, a content creator, posted an awareness video on YouTube and Facebook on December 16, claiming Curative Survey Private Limited was a "big scam after conducting the research."
"What made me suspicious about them was how a startup can offer such high profits when companies like Meta and Google cannot," Javaid told VOA.
Javaid checked the company's details on the Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises website and found there were two companies registered with the same name. One was based in the Chennai city of Tamil Nadu in south India and the other was based in the Jammu district of Jammu and Kashmir. Javaid also visited the company's official website to check details but he couldn't find the name of the owner.
"I noticed that they were fooling people using a Ponzi scheme," Javaid said. "I believe the names of the managing directors appearing on the government website are fake. The owners might have also used fake names on their visit to Kashmir."
The company had set up offices in the Srinagar, Budgam, Baramulla and Jammu districts in the region. They also hired more than a dozen local employees for jobs like marketing and collecting offline payments.
Prior to the launch the alleged owners, who victims identified as Lakshman and Roy and believed to be residents of Chennai, had approached two local social media influencers, Idrees Mir and Yawar Wani, to lure locals to the scam on a large scale. The duo made promotional videos in which they guaranteed "huge profits in return for their investment," before the launch.
Mir and Wani were approached for their comments, but their phones were switched off.
Tabasum Mir, a resident of the Iragam area of Pattan in the Baramulla district, claimed she invested more than $20,500 following a friend's suggestion. Mir said that she initially hesitated but her friend showed her how much she had earned since she invested.
"Despite witnessing people earning profits I did not trust non-locals but the locals who worked for them [Lakshman and Roy] showed villagers franchise documents along with a court affidavit," she said. "Social media influencers also influenced our decision to invest in this scam," she added, saying almost every household in her village invested in the company, ranging from "$600 to $30,000."
News reports about Curative Survey Private Limited, Tabasum Mir said, impacted the mental health of many individuals in her village.
"People borrowed money from friends, relatives and even sold jewelry to invest in the company and now they are all stressed thinking about how to repay the amount," Mir said. "My sister invested $2,500 in this scheme and when her in-laws found out the reality, she was sent back to us and asked to return only after recovering the amount."
Jammu and Kashmir police determined it was all a scam.
"The preliminary investigation revealed that the company exhorted the common public to register on its website and become a partner in surveys it was undertaking," a police statement said. "During searches incriminating materials, including electronic devices and documents, were seized," the police said, adding the registered owners of the company are being identified and being investigated.
Cyber Police Kashmir, in a post on X, formerly Twitter, asked locals as well as victims to share any kind of information related to the financial fraud.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people rushed to submit documents at the local cyber police station in Srinagar.
"I have nothing left except hope," Imtiyaz Ahmad said. "No one except us is to be blamed. We should not have fallen into greed."