Six arrested for duping investors of ₹18 crore in Navi Mumbai

The Navi Mumbai police last week arrested six people for allegedly cheating 5,170 people of ₹18 crore. The accused floated a bogus company and encouraged people

 The Navi Mumbai police last week arrested six people for allegedly cheating 5,170 people of ₹18 crore. The accused floated a bogus company and encouraged people to invest by offering them attractive interest rates, said the police.

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The accused have been identified as Ganesh Bhavanam, 34, director of the company; and managers Lonachan Kuiopuram, 50; Kishore Rokde, 46; Ankush Aher, 50; MS Ramesh, 34; and Ramesh Mane, 49. Police said they are on the lookout for more accused, including a film director.

The accused allegedly started a company, AM Pictures, at Turbhe in July. “They had a total of nine investment plans wherein people could make investments of ₹3,000-₹10 lakh. They had promised investors that the latter would get one percent interest of their capital mount every day for next 400 days. They also encouraged the investors to in turn, invite more investors. They managed to get a total of 5,170 investors just within two to three months,” said Sanjay Kumar, police commissioner of Navi Mumbai. “Last month, our officials from the crime branch learnt about this company and visited their office posing as prospective investors. On September 29, they had organized a huge conference in Lonavala to attract potential investors. They had spent around ₹28lakh on organising the event, which was attended by over 500 people. On September 29 and September 30, we raided their office and arrested six people. We also seized their computers, data, documents and the CCTV footage,” said Kumar.

“During interrogation, we learnt that some of the cash was at Rokde’s house. We raided it and recovered ₹21.05 lakh,” said Ajay Kadam, assistant commissioner of police (crime).