JOIN USCouple held for Rs 500-cr scam
The Delhi police have arrested an impostor couple for allegedly orchestrating one of the biggest frauds in the country.
Ullas Prabhakar Khaire (33) from Nagpur, Maharashtra and his wife Raksha J Urs (30) from Mysore allegedly assumed 14 different identities, seven each. They posed as doctors, investors, businessmen and ran several fraudulent firms, the police said.
In Delhi last year, the couple swindled Rs 500 crore from about two lakh investors who were lured by promises of a 20 per cent return on investments over Rs 1,000 in Stock Guru India. They fled with the money, the police said.
“Till date, the police have received 14,303 complaints inthis case alone,” said Sandeep Goel, Joint Commissioner of Police, Economic Offences Wing, Delhi police.
Khaire had quit school in standard XI and floated a construction business in Nagpur. The police there had registered a cheating case against him. After Khaire vanished from Nagpur, the police declared him a proclaimed offender.
He arrived in Pune in 2004 and worked at a call centre for a few months. In 2005, he came to Bangalore and joined a finance company. He subsequently married Urs who had completed her II BA in photo journalism from a college in Mysore.
After marriage, the couple relocated to Lucknow under the names of Rohit Khatri and Kanchan Khatri and took up jobs at a call centre. In 2006, they shifted to Ahmedabad as Dr Raj Zaveri and Dr Priya Zaveri. Later, they went to Bhubaneswar and then Raipur.
Until then, they used to obtain high value credit cards from various banks in these places. After withdrawing money and making purchases, they used to relocate to another city under a different identity.
In 2009, Khaire and Urs conducted their first organised crime at Dehradun where they opened the Institute of Psychotherapy and Counselling offering certification in psychotherapy and counselling.
Posing as Dr Rakesh Kumar Maheshwari and Dr Prachi Maheshwari, the couple collected huge amount of money from the students and fled to Delhi in December 2009.
In Delhi, they assumed identities of Lokeshwar and Priyanka Dev. Initially, they took a flat at West Patel Nagar in Central Delhi and launched several firms like Stock Guru India, SGI Research and Analysis, SGI Buildtech Ltd, SGI Beverages Ltd, SGI Securities Pvt Ltd, G3 Commodities Pvt Ltd and Coppertrenz. They advertised widely in newspapers and promised to multiply investments over Rs 1,000.
The couple had guaranteed a 20 per cent monthly return up to six months on the principal amount, followed by a refund of the principal amount in the seventh month through prudent and source-based investments in the share market.
They collected around Rs 500 crore from over two lakh investors and fled to Goa in July 2011.
As the news about their con game spread, over 14,300 people filed complaints against them in Rajasthan, Sikkim, Odisha and Chattisgarh.
As the police investigation intensified, the couple shifted from Goa to Ratnagiri in Maharashtra where they rented a house, got PAN cards and opened bank accounts as Sidharth Jai Marathe and Maya Marathe. Khaire had also started a share trade business in the name of JVG Securities with offices in Ratnagiri and Mumbai, while Raksha started a media business.