JOIN USThree men, including two brothers, have been arrested for running a Rs 50 crore investment scam in Delhi and Mumbai on the pretext of providing call centre franchise, police said on Friday.
Mastermind Sandeep Shukla along with his brother Manoj and friend Surendra Batho had floated a company in 2010 and lured investors over highly lucrative returns. They had earlier floated companies in Mumbai and cheated hundreds of investors.
“Sandeep has disclosed that he shifted business base to Delhi over fear of apprehension in Mumbai. He used to organise events and birthday parties in which he called up Bollywood celebrities,” said P Karunakaran, deputy commissioner of police (north-west).
It has also come to light that three cases were registered against them for cheating people of Rs 40 crore with Mumbai Police’s Economic Offence Wing police station.
Delhi Police took up an action after a complainant by Sumitra Kumari with Subhash Place police station. She claimed that a man named Veer Singh Thakur induced her to invest Rs 20 lakh in two of his companies.
It was promised that call centers will be set up at the locations suggested by Sumitra and infrastructure will be provided by the companies.
“It is further alleged that the complainant had taken space for setting up call centers as per terms and conditions mentioned in the agreement, but the alleged company did not set up the call centers,” Karunakaran added.
An initial probe revealed that about 155 people were cheated of over Rs 10 crores using same modus operandi. Accordingly, raids were conducted and the accused were held on the basis of secret information.
“We recovered Rs 2 lakh in cash and jewellery worth Rs 40 lakh from their possession,” Karunakaran said.
Police recovered another Rs 1.19 in cash, jewellery, two laptops, and seven cars worth Rs 1.70 crore at their instance. Sandeep, Manoj and Surendra are in police custody and further investigation is in progress.