CEO of Karvy Private Wealth, others booked for cheating

The city police have booked several top officials from companies operating under the Karvy group, including Karvy Private Wealth Chief Executive Officer Abhijit Bhave, for criminal breach of trust and cheating.

Among those booked include directors of Karvy Stock Brokers, Karvy Realty India Pvt Ltd and Karvy Capitals, who allegedly cheated investors by promising 18-20% returns.

As of now, nine investors, who have been cheated of Rs 3.81 crore, have filed a complaint at Basavanagudi police station. The complainants alleged that Karvy relationship managers called them repeatedly and even visited their residences.

“They encouraged us to invest in the company, which would in turn invest in profit-making firms and get us good returns,” a complainant said.

One of the complainants include a US-returned techie couple, Ketki Shah Talati and her husband Mayank Harshad Talati, who had invested Rs 1.76 crore in 2015. “They had kept the money for their children’s education but have not received returns since the last two years,” police said.

In their complaint, the Talati couple and others said that Srinivas, a relationship manager of Karvy Private Wealth, and others had promised that their investments would be secure.

The managers had told complainants that investments would be handled by the Karvy Private Wealth CEO Abhijit Bhave, Real Estate Head Pravin Garle, Directors Kamodor Partha Sarathi, Yogendar Mika, Ashish Agarwal, Bhagavan Das Narang, regional heads Nithin Sabarwala, Praveenbai Bhagwanji Amlani, Nithin Saksena, Prathivadi Bhayankaram Ramapriyan, Venkatesh Sesha Ravi Prasad Chavali, Mumbai division head Chethan Deherkar and Basavanagudi Branch vice-president Thomas Stephen.

Some of the complainants are retired professionals from various fields and had invested all their savings. When the returns stopped, it came as a rude shock to the investors.

But when the situation remained the same for the next two years, they decided to go to police. One of the complaints to have stopped receiving returns from 2017.

Demonetisation

On enquiring, a Karvy official first cited demonetisation and later GST to explain the “delay”. The Lok Sabha elections became yet another reason. The last straw was the bouncing of some of the cheques given by the company.

The complainants stated that the relationship managers of Karvy were responsible for all their investments as they took cheques, prepared agreements and promotions materials.

They did not have any direct interaction with the companies in which Karvy invested their money.

The complainants said there were hundreds of such victims in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi and other places.

At the time of going to print, DH couldn’t get a response from Karvy. The article will be updated as and when Karvy responds to the story.