Bengaluru: Police on Tuesday upsized the scale of fraud committed by a Banashankari investment firm to Rs 400 crore as at least 200 people turned up at JP Nagar, Jayanagar and Basavanagudi police stations alleging they had been cheated by the company.
“We have decided to register FIRs based on each individual complaint against Vikram Investments. We’re expecting hundreds of FIRs from Wednesday and have asked our stations to swiftly register them,” a senior police officer said. Police said the firm is suspected to have cheated 1,776 persons.
“The fraud amounts to around Rs 400 crore. This is if investors consider the returns they got and treat it as part of the principal they had invested. Else, the fraud will be bigger,” another police officer said.
Vikram Investments founder-director Raghavendra Srinath, who would get people to park huge sums of money in his firm, had been paying the promised high returns to old investors from fresh investments. “He said he had invested a part of the money he collected from investors in onion, chilli, copper, zinc and gold, among other commodities. We’re not sure of the quantum of this investment yet,” the police officer said.
Quoting preliminary investments, the officer said the firm took investments from celebrities through above-the-board online transfers. He said they’re checking whether celebrities from other fields, including the film industry, had also invested.
Police confirmed that Srinath had no licence to trade in commodities. They had no RBI permission too, police said, adding that income-tax officials are likely to join the probe soon. According to them, Srinath paid his wealth managers a 12.5% commisson on investments they brought.
The case may transferred to the CID, which has a designated wing for economic offences, considering the huge money involved in the case. As per procedure, any cheating case involving Rs 5 crore or more has to be investigated by the CID. The case may be transferred to the CID after March 17, when the 14-day police custody of the accused ends.
“Three police teams are investigating the case. We’ll reveal the outcome within a few days,” SD Sharanappa, DCP (South division) said.
“Money for dream house is stuck now”
Rohith.BR@timesgroup.com
Praveen KS (name changed), a resident of Chamarajpet and trader, is shattered. His hard-earned Rs 50 lakh is now stuck with Vikram Investments, which has been accused of cheating hundreds of investors of crores of rupees.
Praveen told TOI it all started in 2008, when a friend introduced him to the company and told him about the good returns. “I invested about Rs 2 lakh to start with and was happy to get annual returns in the range of 40% to 45%. Encouraged by this, I made four more investments in the names of my family members,” he added.
All this was meant to save money for his family’s dream home. “All went well till end of last year and we had a total investment of about Rs 50 lakh. We hadn’t withdrawn any money and didn’t get any doubt about the company as there was no hitch all these years,” he said.
The problem started in January 2017, when the returns began dwindling. “Whenever we checked, the company guys would say they have some problems with their bank and it would be settled soon. Like many investors, I too waited in hope, only to get this shocker,” he said.
Praveen said he’ll lodge a police complaint on Wednesday as he couldn’t do it in the past two days.
