Torres Jewellery investment scheme goes bust, top execs booked
MUMBAI: Police have booked Torres Jewellery executives for allegedly cheating investors of ₹13.48 crore as panicked investors demand their money back.
MUMBAI: Police have booked top executives of Torres Jewellery House for allegedly cheating investors of crores of rupees in schemes it had floated, even as panicky investors gathered outside at least two of its showrooms on Monday to demand money they were owed.

Police have registered cases against five executives of the jewellery store, which has showrooms in Dadar, Grant Road, Mira Road, Vashi and Kalyan. The store has, however, uploaded a message on its website, claiming that its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Tausif Reyaz was responsible for “robbing and vandalizing the stores, and looting jewellery and cash” along with other employees.
Shivaji Park police said investors started gathering outside the Dadar store located near Kohinoor Square on Monday as they had stopped receiving weekly payouts from Torres Jewellery House, which had launched various investment schemes, including what appeared to be a pyramid scheme.
“On investing ₹1 lakh in a scheme floated by the store, customers would get a discount of ₹10,000 on a pendant with a moissanite stone. Customers and investors were also promised 6% of the invested sum paid out across the following 52 weeks. They had launched schemes in February 2024 and were to complete a year this February,” said one of the investors.
An officer with the Shivaji Park police said, “The jewellery store had grown popular in just one year since it launched these schemes. They had started defaulting on payments two weeks ago. After people started gathering at the store on Monday, we registered a case based on complaints lodged by an investor.”
He said offences have been registered against the holding firm, Platinum Hern Private Limited, and its directors Survesh Ashok Surve and Viktoria Kovalenko; CEO Tausif Reyaz alias John Carter; general manager Tania Kasatova; and store in-charge Velantino Kumar.” They have been charged under Sections 318 (4) (cheating), 316 (5) (criminal breach of trust) and 61 (criminal conspiracy) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and Sections 3 and 4 of the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (In Financial Establishments) Act, 1999. Police suspect some accused have may have fled the country.
“Until now, now we have found that the fraud amounts to ₹13.48 crore. However, we expect the sum to be much higher as they had five stores in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR),” said the police officer.
The APMC Police in Vashi said around 43 investors had approached them, as one store is located in Sanpada in Navi Mumbai. They said they were in the process of registering a case against the store owners.
Similarly, police in Mira Road were also in the process of registering offences against the accused as investors had assembled outside the store here as well.
“I had invested 3 lakhs and our group in total had invested around 3 crores. We were attracted by the returns they were offering. Several people in Kurla were working as agents promoting the schemes to get referral bonuses. Money was coming and the returns were huge,” said a small stationary store owner from Kurla. I am in shock as I have lost all my savings.”
Pradeep Kumar Vaishya, 31, a wholesale vegetable vendor in Dadar, lost around ₹7 lakh to the fraud. Around 30 relatives and friends of his, have collectively lost around ₹ 4.55 crore. In the First Information Report (FIR), Vaishya said he had learnt that around 1,25,000 people had invested in Torres Jewellery and the sum was more than ₹100 crore. “When I didn’t get my instalment, they initially told me it was a technical problem with the bank, on 1st January. On January 6th, I was told to come to the store. When I did, I saw people had gathered there but the employees had no idea what had happened. That’s when I realised I had been cheated,” he stated in the FIR.

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