EOW arrests investment firm owner for duping 170 people of ₹7 crore

The accused Siddharth Pilani, 36, is the proprietor of Capital Berg which has an office in Kandivali (West).

Mumbai: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai police has arrested the owner of an investment firm for allegedly duping 170 investors to the tune of nearly ₹7 crore. The accused misused the name and reputation of known numerologist and vaastu consultant Biindu Khuraana and her client base of over 6 lakh people to induce them into investing in his schemes promising impressive returns.

Siddharth Pilani

The accused Siddharth Pilani, 36, is the proprietor of Capital Berg which has an office in Kandivali (West).

Pravin Padwal, joint commissioner of police, EOW confirmed that the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (MPID) Act unit last week arrested Pilani for cheating many investors.

As per the complaint of Chitkaran Khuraana, son of Biindu Khuraana, the accused was introduced to her mother a few years ago by one of her clients with an affluent background.

The Khuraana family was told by Pilani that off-market trades and stock marketing are safe and genuine platforms for investment with guaranteed and assured returns. Trusting him, Khuraana initially invested money and got promised returns for the initial months.

Police officer part of the probe said the accused exploited the popularity of Khuraana, who had about 6 lakh clients across the globe. He made Biindu Khuraana arrange a Zoom meeting, which was attended by 30 people. In the meeting, Pilani convinced the participants to invest in the guaranteed investment plans.

“The accused made us create WhatsApp groups (Mann Corpus, Survivor etc.) with over 170 people (from my mother’s social circle) for the same investment plan. Pilani used to advertise and assure returns through glorified investment plans so people started investing as per their own will. The returns of the investments for all of us started diminishing and were completely contrary to that promised by the accused from November 2020 onwards. Subsequently, people started complaining about cheating and breach of trust,” Chitkaran stated in the FIR, of which HT has seen a copy.

“The accused periodically shared the detailed trade sheets of our investment holdings through email. When we asked about the contract documents of the shares issued by NSE and BSE, he told us not to follow that and that his excel spreadsheets were good enough. We have invested around ₹57.97 lakh between June 1 and December 31, 2020. The total amount due, for me and my family, is approximately ₹13.79 crore as of March 24, 2022, as per the trade sheet sent by Pilani,” Chitkaran said in his statement.

Speaking to HT, Chitkaran said the victims of the fraud include salaried people, small businessmen, senior citizens, housewives and poor people. The investors have invested in all about ₹7 crore and the value has increased to ₹16.22 crore, as per the trade sheet sent to them by Pilani.

Sadanand Rane, senior inspector of the MPID unit said that Pilani was arrested under sections 420, 406, 409 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code and sections 3 and 4 of the MPID Act. The court on Monday sent him to judicial custody.

Pilani was also booked in a cheating case in 2019 in which he is accused of duping 13 investors of ₹14 crore. He has been granted anticipatory bail in the case, the EOW said.