Agency: There are two Facebook pages called ‘Sandeep Rai Chamling Official’ (SRC) with around 7,389 followers and Sandeep Rai Chamling with 6,800 followers. There are another 9,048 followers on Tiktok and 1,694 followers on Instagram.
There are frequent videos of Sandeep Rai Chamling claiming to earn hundreds of dollars a day through Crypto ‘Trading,’ and inspirational quotes about making money. There are lifestyle videos of him living the good life, getting an expensive watch, an expensive bike, going for a holiday to Phobjikha, buying an expensive bag using crypto or happening to go for a meal to a five star hotel in Thimphu
Photos from Sandeep Rai Chamling Official Facebook page
Sandeep, who is also the owner of the Pandorzbiz.com, an e-commerce platform and business, is coming under increasing public scrutiny after a former client ,Kezang Choden (44), levied various allegations against him on social media over his SRC Mentorship Plan that claims to train people to do ‘crypto trading’ through the PandoraBiz app and also earn Cryptocurrency.
However, the mentorship business is being done without any license or clearance from authorities and the only license he has is for e-commerce. It is not just Kezang, as there are statements from large numbers of former clients, who also claim they have lost their money with Sandeep.
There is also a Facebook page called PandoraBiz.com belonging to the same Sandeep Rai Chamling with 67,000 followers that promotes the same App promoted by Sandeep. This page which started as an e-commerce page for PandoraBiz apart from selling items online built its visibility in part by warning people about online ‘scams’ in the past few years.
Troubled past
Back around November 2023, the Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority (CCAA) first came across Pandorzbiz.com giving mainly online Crypto mentorship classes where people paid between Nu 2,777 to Nu 6,000 and they were introduced to FreeBitco.in, a dubious and controversial crypto website, where one had to play games or gamble to earn Bitcoin units called Satoshi, but more on this site later.
The CCAA, at the time, referred the matter to the Bhutan Qualifications and Professional Certification Authority (BQPCA) since Sandeep’s company was giving courses without any authorization.
The BQPCA in February 2024 issued a notification asking people to not undertake such trainings, and Sandeep was told he could not provide such trainings by a firm not registered with BQPCA and its course not approved by the regulator.
Sandeep, however, did not stop and continued the business, and then when BQCPA caught him again, he was fined Nu 10,000 and on top of that made to pay tax for the amount earned by him at the time.
Matters, however, did not stop there, and Sandeep then launched the ‘SRC Mentorship Plan’ where he collected thousands from many people in return for teaching about crypto trading and how to earn crypto currency through FreeBitco.in.
The modus operandi was that people would get multiple messages and calls with frequent follow ups to join. There were mass messages sent on social media, especially in Facebook and Tiktok. In a few cases people impressed with the videos would reach out themselves.
Under SRC Mentorship Plan people have to pay Nu 6,262 and download the PandoraBiz App where there are some videos of Sandeep giving a course about trading.