He made a fortune in just seven years

MUMBAI: Jagdish Kanani, 33, moved from being a small garment shop owner in Chennai to acquiring plush properties in the western suburbs and a fleet of high end cars

MUMBAI: Jagdish Kanani, 33, moved from being a small garment shop owner in Chennai to acquiring plush properties in the western suburbs and a fleet of high end cars all in seven years.

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The police say he is an investor in one of the seven call centres raided earlier this month. He ran two other such centres in Malad and Borivli, shut them down after the raids but made no attempt to flee, assuming the police would never get to him. He was wrong.

During initial questioning, the police learnt Kanani earned between Rs40 lakh and Rs50 lakh a month from the centres. A senior crime branch official heading the probe said Kanani joined his father in the family-owned garment shop in Chennai after an MBA from Pune in 2009. “It is a small shop in suburban Chennai. The father-son duo barely earned Rs15,000-20,000 a month,” said the officer, who interrogated Kanani for more than six hours after his arrest. In a few years, Kanani moved out of that city to his home state Gujarat and joined a BPO in Ahmedabad. “It was a genuine BPO, but we are trying to find out why he chose to join the low income job despite a degree.”

A crime branch source said Kanani took the BPO job to learn the business as fake BPOs were already flourishing in Ahmedabad then. “All these BPOs were duping people from across the country. Kanani saw an opportunity,” sources said. In the next two years, Kanani set up a fake call centre in Ahmedabad.“He got data of loan defaulters from banks and called them up to force a settlement. This is known as payday fraud,” sources said. In 2013 or 2014, Kanani, made trips to the US and UK to learn about taxpayers and how they could be scammed. “He set up a bogus call centre at Prestige Industrial Estate in Orlem, Malad (West), took on lease 7-8 offices in a building and another one at Borivli (East). He hired two buildings near BMC colony in Malad for accommodation for his employees,” said sources.

Six months ago, he invested in a Mira Road centre and took a floor on rent for Rs4 lakh a month. Kanani owns six two-bedroom flats in Malad, Borivli and a three-bedroom penthouse in Borivli where he lived. “He owned a high-end cars and lived lavishly,” said a friend. Kanani destroyed most hardware before his arrest.