Delhi HC takes cognisance on fake Peak XV and Sequoia Capital channels on WhatsApp, Telegram

The Delhi High Court has directed WhatsApp and Telegram to suspend accounts duping people in the name of Peak XV and Sequoia Capital.

Ordering for the issue of appropriate directions by authorities to curb these identified scams, the Court has taken cognisance of a series of financial scams proliferating online wherein the scammers were using the name of the prominent venture capital firms scamming people to the extent of several lakhs and crores.

The two separate cases were filed on January 22, after which the court issued a directive to the messaging platforms to suspend and block access to the relevant accounts.

While Sequoia Capital is a California-headquartered venture capital firm for seed, early-stage, and growth-stage investments across private companies in technology, Peak XV Partners was formerly the Indian and South Asian arm of Sequoia Capital. 

Peak XV was alerted of one such scam in December last year wherein a 'Pak XV' application tried to pass off as Peak XV's brand and trademarks. The site also reproduced content from the official website to operate its website and application that offered fake investment schemes. The perpetrators even conducted webinars on stock trading tips by impersonating employees of the firm.

In September 2023, Sequoia Capital was informed of a WhatsApp group named John Analyst Group-303 managed by persons who identified themselves as Sequoia Capital Investors Advisors and Sequoia Capital BTC Trading Team, purportedly a part of the Sequoia Capital Group.

The suits were up for hearing on January 24, wherein the Hon’ble Court took cognisance of the scams, passing orders stating that the perpetrators are taking aid of Peak XV and Sequoia Capital’s standing in the market to induce unaware consumers into investing a substantial amount of money, and passing off Peak XV's and Sequoia Capital's respective trademarks claiming an association with the venture funds.

The WhatsApp group ‘Peak XV 1026’ was also using the name and images of Peak XV's Managing Director Shailendra Singh and Rajan Anandan, it was reported. 

As per the High Court's orders, Alibaba Cloud Computing (Beijing) Co. Ltd., has been directed to suspend or block access to the website “https://pak.xv.ioyppp.com/ and submit details of the IP address, name and contact as well as the mode of payment of the impersonators who registered for the fake site.

Moreover, Meta Platforms Inc., is directed to delete the WhatsApp groups and remove or block access to the WhatsApp accounts of the mobile numbers. The Zuckerberg-owned organisation has also been directed to file the IP addresses associated with the WhatsApp accounts of the mobile numbers in four weeks.

Telegram has been issued a similar directive.

The Court also asked the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) and the Department of Telecommunications under the Ministry of Communications to remove access to all the telephone numbers, websites, domain names, accounts on social media and messaging platforms.

IndusInd Bank has also been directed to temporarily suspend and disable the UPI IDs, while Bharti Airtel and Google have been directed to remove access as well as disclose details of the perpetrators.