The Fraudster Vihaan Direct Selling (India) Pvt Ltd Under Scanner

As online trading grows, so does the risk of fraud. With an increasingly larger number of online transactions taking place everyday across the world, more and more entry points are exposed to bad actors to defraud businesses.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, India lost a staggering Rs 22,495 crore to online fraud in 2025. And if the loss last year was marginally lower than Rs 22,845 crore of 2024, the number of cases has jumped from 22.68 lakh in 2024 to 28.68 lakh in 2025. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) and the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) register millions of fraud cases annually, with social media platforms and fake e-commerce websites acting as the primary attack vectors.

Many of these cases go unnoticed as defrauded persons often prefer to remain silent. But here is an exception where people who were cheated went directly to law enforcement authorities and filed their cases. Three such police cases were lodged in Hyderabad in early 2026 against a Bengaluru-based Q-net company, Vihaan Direct Selling (India) Private Limited that operates as the local sub-franchise and master distributor for the international e-commerce and direct selling company QNET.

·         FIR - Book NO 37/2026 lodged in Police Station EOW Team – 1 in Hyderabad on 24.02.26

Name of the complainant – MS Sowmya Kulkarni

Offence under the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Scheme (Banning) Act 1978

Name of the accused: Q-net Company / Vihaan Direct Selling (India) Pvt Ltd

Manisha Jawale and ten others are absconding while Navratan Kakani is arrested and is under Judicial Custody

·         FIR - Book NO 53/2026 lodged in Police Station EOW Team – 1, in Hyderabad on 17.03.26

Name of the complainant – Sri Malothu Charan

Offence under the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Scheme (Banning) Act 1978

Name of the accused: Q-net Company / Vihaan Direct Selling (India) Pvt Ltd

Accused: Pothineni Prathyusha and 21 others arrested and are under Judicial Custody

·         FIR lodged in Police Station EOW Team – 1, in Hyderabad on 23.03.26

Name of the complainant – Kambhapati Sravani

Name of the accused: Q-net Company / Vihaan Direct Selling (India) Pvt Ltd

Accused: Anusha Vamireddy and eight others arrested and under Judicial Custody

Not surprising that so many fraudulence cases have been lodged against Vihaan. A recent survey of some 400 cases of supply commitments, between January 2025 and early June 2026, finds that of the 250 orders not delivered, with 56 of them Vihaan had led the group of defaulters.

Vihaan, the Indian master franchise of Hong Kong-based multi-level marketing (MLM) firm QNet, however, has been systematically facing scrutiny from multiple central and state regulatory agencies over allegations of tax evasion, money laundering, and operating illegal Ponzi schemes. Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) records highlight scrutiny over cross-border payments made by the company to non-resident entities located in Hong Kong and Singapore.

So much so, a survey under section 133A conducted at premises of Vihaan earlier found that the company did not pay TDS for payment amounting to about Rs 3.75 crore. Subsequently, notice under section 201(1) and 201 (1A) of the Income Tax Act was issued to Vihaan, calling upon explanation as to why no TDS was deducted on the said payments.

Way back in 2019 the Enforcement Directorate had registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against the company, alleging that the MLM scheme drained out over Rs. 20,000 crore out of India. The agency had previously frozen company bank accounts worth Rs 137 crore and attached properties.

Multiple state police departments; most notably in Telangana and Maharashtra, have registered FIRs and arrested individuals associated with the company for allegedly defrauding thousands of investors under the guise of financial freedom. 

According to legal records, various state governments (including Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi, Karnataka, and Telangana) have registered numerous criminal cases against the company, with some estimates citing up to 38 cases depending on the jurisdiction

While Vihaan and its promoters have approached the Supreme Court and High Courts to stay certain criminal proceedings and FIRs arguing that their model is a legitimate e-commerce platform and not a banned money circulation scheme, various regulatory and enforcement actions have cn March 2026, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Hyderabad City Police orchestrated a massive crackdown on Vihaan, arresting 32 individuals stemming from four new cases across Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka. The individuals, many of whom were IT professionals, were charged with running illegal money circulation schemes banned under the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978.

The Register of Companies had filed a formal petition before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in August 2019, seeking the compulsory winding up of the firm based on its fraudulent operational framework.

But Vihaan is thriving and gives references to a March 2017 Supreme Court of India Stay Order that halted several regional FIRs and investigations, maintaining that its independent representatives (IRs) — rather than corporate policy — are to blame for any misrepresentations or compliance failures. That is, Vihaan’s employees will be arrested, 32 employees were arrested in March 2026, for the company’s misdeeds but the company and its big bosses will still be able to avoid legal proceedings.

The glaring example is Blue Diamond Star and QNET’s V partner Sachin Gupta, a top achiever and now a venture capitalist. He fled the country before any serious crack down came over the company and he was legally entangled. Sachin Gupta, joined the company in 2008 and soon became a key person in expansion and financial restructuring of QNet in India. He is now operating from Dubai. This causes serious concern as by doing so he stays outside the purview of Indian jurisdiction while working for QNET.  Critics argue that the movement of key individuals outside Indian jurisdiction raises serious questions about accountability, enforcement challenges and the ability of the defrauded investors to get justice.