Senior exec duped of ₹2.15-cr in investment fraud

According to the complainant, Sandeep Khule, 42, a resident of LBS road, Bhandup West, his brother-in-law Mandar Bhandvalkar had invested some money with Amit Kumar Sharma who ran A K Future Investments

Mumbai: A senior executive with an electricity distribution company has complained that he along with his family was cheated to the tune of ₹2.15 crore by a person promising 3 to 5% monthly returns on their investment. The police said initially the accused paid the exorbitant returns only to gain the confidence of the complainant and later started defaulting on payment.

After all the family members started continuously calling Sharma to return their money, he gave a written undertaking to all of them that he owed them money with the interest rate as promised. (HT)

According to the complainant, Sandeep Khule, 42, a resident of LBS road, Bhandup West, his brother-in-law Mandar Bhandvalkar had invested some money with Amit Kumar Sharma who ran A K Future Investments.

Sharma was a childhood friend of Mandar’s brother-in-law Rohan Chauhan. Initially, Mandar had got returns to the tune of 5% every month. He was told that Sharma was investing in the share market and getting good returns so was able to pay them as well.

After Mandar spread the word, Khule also got interested in investing with Sharma. From June 2020, the family invested with Sharma till September 2021, and till January 2022, Sharma paid them the interest as promised at 5% per month to gain their confidence and attract more investors, said a police officer.

“In January 2022, Mandar started demanding his ₹90 lakh invested with Sharma as he wanted to purchase a property and since then Sharma started avoiding him,” said a police officer from Bhandup police station, where a case of cheating, breach of trust and common intention has been registered.

“When the complainant further investigated, they learnt that Sharma had not invested the money in the share market, as was portrayed to them, but he had transferred the money to the bank account of his friend Karuna Ravi Singh, another accused in the case and a Malad resident,” said the police officer.

After all the family members started continuously calling Sharma to return their money, he gave a written undertaking to all of them that he owed them money with the interest rate as promised.

“The accused had even given them post-dated cheques which came to be dishonoured,” said a police officer.

The police said Sharma a resident of Sector 4 in Kharghar area and total took ₹2.15 crore from Khule and his family members promising huge returns. Mandar Bandvalkar, who works in the USA, too lost most of his investments with Sharma. Major amount in ₹2 crore is of Mandar Bandvalkar.

“We will soon call Sharma for questioning and then decide the further course of the investigation,” said the senior police officer. “It was clear from day one that Sharma wanted to cheat the complainants, promising them attractive returns as he never invested their money in the share market,” the officer added.