When Mozzie ,a fictional con man from the very popular CBS Drama "White Collar" says that we live in cynical times, he couldn't have been more truthful in observing a world with a middle name called "Short-cut" for material gain. Seriously, even though it sounds cliched but consumerism has indeed forced man to lower himself to the extreme possible extent where everything is fair when it comes to money .
In India the situation is even worse, controversy and scams have become a part of our daily lives. Adding to that list yet another fraud has been reported, now this time it is called "Stock Guru Scam", thanks to the media for naming it. In New Delhi , a couple has been arrested for allegedly duping around two lakh investors from seven states of nearly Rs 500 Crore by promising them high returns on their investment through their firm dealing in stock market, police said on Tuesday.
"After a hunt of one year, Ulhas Prabhakar Khaire, 33, a resident of Nagpur, and his 30 year-old wife Raksha were arrested from Maharashtra's Ratnagiri town on Saturday by the sleuths of Delhi Police Economic Offences Wing for duping over two lakh people from Delhi, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra," Joint commissioner of Delhi Police, EOW, Sandeep Goel said.
"Till date we have received 14,303 complaints in Delhi but during investigations we found that there were about 2,05,062 investors who had invested Rs 10,000 or more totaling an investment of about Rs 493 crore in M/s Stock Guru India," he said, adding that the duo was managing to evade arrest by hiding in Moradabad, Dehradun, Alwar, Nagpur and Goa. In Ratnagiri, the couple was living under the false names Sidhharth Jay Marathe and Maya Marathe, along with their three children. Giving details of their modus operandi, Goel said, they had floated Stock Guru India in 2010 under false identity of Loskeshwar Dev and Priyanka Saraswat Dev. They lured several people to invest in the firm promising them highly lucrative returns of 20 per cent per month up to six months on the principal amount followed by a subsequent refund of the principal amount in the seventh month, through prudent and source based investments in the share market, he said.
The scheme to induce public at large was quite elaborate with conferences and distribution of very attractive brochures in five-star hotels all over India, the officer said."They also had multiple agents across the country who mobilized funds on their behalf. But instead of returning their investments as promised, the duo suddenly shut down their office and escaped with all the collected funds," he said, adding that first case was registered in June last year and subsequently many more victims lodged their complaints.
The couple have 94 accounts in 20 different banks with 13 different names, 12 properties--including eight flats in Dwarka in Delhi, one each in Bhiwadi, Alwar and Moradabad and a villa in Goa. They also owned 12 luxury vehicles, the official said. Police has, so far, recovered Rs 63 crore worth properties, cash and demand drafts of various banks. Of these, fixed deposits are of Rs 80 lakh, share investments of Rs 5.87 crore, demand drafts from three banks of value Rs 26.86 crore, properties worth Rs 5.87 Crore and cash in banks is around Rs 23 crore. "We have frozen all the accounts and questioning them to know about the rest amount," Goel said. The couple--Khaire, who is Class XI pass and Raksha Urs, who has done second year BA in Photography journalism--have old record of committing crime.
It seems in India we have an undeclared but significant season called “scam” that lasts forever.
With inputs from web
Aw-Jyotishman
