Ponzi schemes that promised large returns cost thousands of people their ₹870 crore in savings.

Falcon Invoice tricked thousands of Indians into making short-term investments in Telangana with the promise of large returns, resulting in their losing ₹870 crore in a Ponzi scheme.

According to a police statement and several victims Reuters spoke to, thousands of Indian investors are frantically trying to recover around ₹870 crore ($100 million) after falling victim to a Ponzi scam that tricked them into making short-term investments that promised large returns.

Following a case against Falcon Invoice Discounting, which claimed to link depositors with companies like Amazon and biscuit manufacturer Britannia in order to offer returns of up to 22%, Telangana police arrested two people on Saturday.

According to a police statement in the southern state of Telangana, Falcon has barely paid back half of the ₹1,700 crore (about $196 million) that it has collected from over 7,000 investors since 2021.

Last week, 50 other investors met with jeweler Ankit Bihani of New Delhi to discuss ways to recover the ₹50 crore they claimed to have lost, including legal remedies.

"Most of them (investors) got to know about the investing platform through social media and invested in it," Bihani stated to Reuters.

According to the investigators, Falcon transferred the remaining monies to different shell companies after using the funds from new investors to reimburse previous ones. According to a source, the primary suspect and creator of Falcon, Amardeep Kumar, is being sought by authorities.

Some of the victims Reuters spoke with, however, are left wondering if they will get back the money they trusted Falcon with—in some cases, their whole life savings.

"It's money I worked so hard to earn. One tech worker who lost ₹1.5 crore, Roopesh Chauhan, stated, "We don't know when and how will we get it back."

After losing more than ₹30 lakh, associate professor S. Smriti contacted the police.

According to Smriti, "the money was all our savings,"

A significant increase in complaints from people who have been tricked by phony investment schemes that use phony websites, apps, and contact centers to trick unwary investors has alarmed Indian authorities.