Torres CEO Tausif Riyaz held in Lonavala in multi-crore investor scam

Riyaz claims he is being framed but police suspect he helped foreigners set up their ponzi scheme base in the country

MUMBAI: Police have made their fifth arrest in the high-profile Torres Jewellery scam, an elaborate scheme run by a group of Indians, Ukrainians, an Uzbek national and a Turkish suspect, who defrauded thousands of small investors in and around Mumbai. Tausif Riyaz, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Platinum Hern Private Limited, the holding company of the jewellery chain, was arrested by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police from Lonalava on January 26.

Torres CEO Tausif Riyaz held in Lonavala in multi-crore investor scam

Riyaz, who also goes by the alias ‘John Carter’, was arrested from a hotel in Lonavala after being on the run for three weeks. A resident of Virar in Mumbai, Riyaz claims he has been framed and is, in fact, a whistle-blower but police suspect he was a key link who helped the foreigners set up a base in India.

Riyaz’s arrest takes the total number of arrests in the case to five. “We have already arrested the stores’ general manager Taniya Xasatova alias Tazagul Karaxanovma Xasatova, who is an Uzbek; the company’s director Sarvesh Ashok Surve, an Indian; store-in-charge, Valentina Ganesh Kumar, a Russian married to an Indian; and alleged hawala operator, Alpesh Khara, a Charni Road-based store owner,” said a police officer investigating the case.

“We are searching for eight Ukrainians and a Turkish individual who are at large. Tausif was wanted since the fraud surfaced on January 6. He went to his hometown in Bihar, from where he fled to Lucknow, and then to Lonavala, where we arrested him,” the police officer added.

The fraud surfaced on January 6, after six stores under the Torres Jewellery brand abruptly shut a year after luring thousands of small investors to invest in schemes that promised unbelievable weekly returns on the purchase of gold, jewellery and moissanite. Using flashy storefronts to create the illusion of trust, and by hosting ‘seminars’ to further enhance investor trust, Torres also ran Ponzi schemes to sweeten the deal. To further build hype, the brand ran lucky draws that gave away cars and cell phones, among other expensive bumper prizes.

Torres also increased their payouts during the Christmas and New Year season last year, before they suddenly shut shop. When word spread, bewildered investors began assembling outside their showrooms in Dadar, Sanpada and Thane, and thronging local police stations to figure out what had happened. Many lost their life’s savings in the fraudulent get-rich-quick schemes floated by the jewellery chain.

Police believe the suspected number of investors defrauded in the multi-crore scam could be as high as 1.25 lakh through its stores in Mumbai, Navi-Mumbai, Kalyan and Mira-Bhayandar. Their investigation so far reveals that Platinum Hern Private Limited operated without a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) licence. Apart from scamming investors, the company also engaged in money laundering, including the purchase of benami properties.

Riyaz, meanwhile, claims he has been framed and had no idea what his colleagues were up to. “They made me the CEO only on 1st of January 2025, after they planned to flee the country. The holding company is blaming me, claiming that I ransacked Torres stores along with other employees, and has been sharing footage doctored with the help of Artificial Intelligence,” Riyaz had earlier told the media.

After his arrest, Riyaz was produced before an MPID court (Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors Act, 1999) court, which remanded him to police custody till February 3. His lawyer Priyanshu Mishra told the court, “Tausif is a whistleblower and had written to the agencies much before the fraud came to light. He had all the documents and e-mails to prove his innocence. He has not received a single penny in his bank account from the fraud money. He is the one who supplied documents to Abhishek Gupta regarding the fraud, and Gupta also wrote to agencies. Tausif has been made a scapegoat.” Gupta, the external auditor for Platinum Hern Private Limited, too claims he is a whistleblower in the case.

Countering Riyaz’s claim, an EOW official said, “We believe Tausif helped the Ukrainian nationals and is now posing as a whistleblower. As per Abhishek Gupta, they had converted more than ₹200 crore in the last few months into cryptocurrency and laundered it to foreign countries.”

The EOW has been pulled up by the Bombay High Court for its failure to trace the Ukranians, who are among the prime accused in the case. The investigative agency has issued Look-Out Notices and also Blue Corner Notice to trace the foreigners.