Hyd Police arrest former world billiards champ Michael Ferreira: Reports

Hyderabad Police arrested former world billiards champion Michael Ferreira and three others in a multi-crore illegal marketing scheme, media reports said on Wednesday.

Updated on: Oct 19, 2016, 11:35:55 IST

Hindustan Times | By Dhrubo Jyoti

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Hyderabad Police arrested former world billiards champion Michael Ferreira and three others in a multi-crore illegal marketing scheme, media reports said on Wednesday.

Billiards player Michael Ferreira is accused of running an illegal money circulation scam under the name QNET. (File Photo)

The arrest comes two weeks after Ferreira surrendered before a Mumbai court but the Padma Bhushan awardee reportedly didn’t cooperate with investigators. The Supreme Court has also refused any relief to Ferreira and the other accused. His police custody with the economic offences wing of the Mumbai Police ended last Thursday.

Read | QNET scam: Michael Ferreira sent to judicial custody, Hyderabad police to take his custody

The sportsperson and three others were directors of Vihaan Direct Selling India (Pvt) Ltd, which is accused of running and operating an illegal money circulation scheme under the name of QNET — previously known as Questnet in India.

Investigators say nearly 500,000 investors across India were duped by the promoters of QNET, which allegedly used a banned business model for their marketing schemes to lure investors.

The prosecution says QNET attracted investment from people by promising them huge commissions to enroll new investors into the firm, or offered them fraudulent investment schemes. In 2016, eight alleged victims complained to the police.

Other than Ferreira, the other accused are Malcolm Desai, owner of Vihaan, Srinivas Rao Vanka and Magaral Veervalli Balaji, directors of Vihaan, and Suresh Thimiri, director of Transview Enterprises India Pvt Ltd.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dhrubo Jyoti
Dhrubo Jyoti is Deputy Executive Editor at Hindustan Times, where they help oversee the newspaper’s daily news and opinion coverage. They are part of the leadership team of the newspaper and their daily responsibilities include news selection, commissioning and editing, apart from planning and executing special projects. Apart from this, they write on national affairs at the intersection of caste and sexuality, with a focus on elections, politics and the lifeworlds of the caste marginalised. Formally trained in physics from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata and Bose Institute, Kolkata, they made a switch to studying journalism from the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai. Over the past decade at Hindustan Times, they have worked at the National Desk, Page 1 team, Integrated Copy Desk and Special Stories Team, before running the opinion page as views editor for two years, and then moving back as Senior Editor of News Operations. In the past 12 years, they have reported on numerous national and state elections, specialising on caste-informed coverage of major moments in India’s history, and focussing on leading investigations into government accountability and social inequities. Their narrative non-fiction work aims to put Dalit voices at the core of India’s LGBTQIA+ movements.Read More