Thane court grants bail to woman arrested in Torres Jewellery fraud case

A special MPID (Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors Act) court in Thane granted bail to a woman consultant arrested in the Torres Jewellery fraud case in which scores of investors from Mumbai Metropolitan Region were duped of crores of rupees.

MUMBAI: A special MPID (Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors Act) court in Thane granted bail to a woman arrested in the Torres Jewellery fraud case in which scores of investors from Mumbai Metropolitan Region were duped of crores of rupees.

Mumbai, India - Jan. 6, 2025: Torres jewellery showroom in Dadar vandalised after cheating allegations by many investors in pretext of doubling their money, in Mumbai, India, on Monday, January 6, 2025. (Photo by Anshuman Poyrekar/ Hindustan Times) (Hindustan Times)

Laxmi Yadav, who was hired as a consultant by the company, is the first from among the nine arrested accused in the case to get bail in the multi-crore ponzi scheme case.

Advocate Trupen Rathod, appearing for Yadav, informed the court that she was one of the whistleblowers who had informed about the fraud to agencies and that she had not been named in the First Information Report by the police. Bombay high court has already protected the other whistleblower, Abhishek Gupta, a chartered accountant, in the matter.

Rathod further stated that Yadav was not handling any of the stores of Torres nor was there any recovery from her house.

He argued that “the servant (Yadav) is not liable for the act of the master”, as the applicant had the limited role of executing rent agreement only and was not involved in the affairs of managing the company. He said Yadav had the Power of Attorney to execute leave and license agreements on behalf of Torres Jewellery, given by fugitive Ukranian national and director of the parent company, Platinum Hern Private Limited, Viktoriia Kovalenko.

It was further argued on her behalf that as she was not part of any syndicate and, also, suffered from many ailments, she should be granted bail.

After hearing the arguments, special judge, Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors Act, Thane, G T Pawar, granted bail to Yadav, who was arrested on January 10, 2025, in the multi-crore ponzi scheme case, which is believed to have cheated around 1,25,000 investors to the tune of ₹1,000 crore.

The fraud came to light on January 6, 2025, when the investors learnt that the Ukranians, who ran the Torres stores, had fled. Immediately, Shivaji Park police, Navghar police, APMC Police in Navi Mumbai, and Rabodi police in Thane registered cases in the matter.

The Navghar police registered a case on the complaint of Kapil Usmani, an investor, who along with 213 other investors, lost more than ₹3 crore. The police, apart from applying cheating sections, also applied Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors Act (MPID) in the case.

It was the Navghar police that arrested Laxmi Yadav along with Nitin Lakhvani, supervisor, and Mohammad Moizuddhin Shaikh, cashier of the store in Mira Road.