Duo dupe people of Rs 9.5 crore on pretext of providing club membership

HYDERABAD: In the name of providing club membership and holiday packages, a duo allegedly scammed innocent people of the city to the tune of `9.5 crores.  Based out of an office space in Khairathabad, the proprietors of Fortune group of estates and services were nabbed by the police after a complaint was raised against them by one of the victims. The conspiracy to cheat innocent people was hatched by Shaik Khadar Basha and P Vijay Kumar, according to the police. The duo worked for a considerable time in the hospitality sector to gain experience. Eventually, in June 2017, they bought a company, Priority Services, despite being aware that the company was running in losses. 

After buying the company, they re-branded it as Fortune group of estates and services and conspired to make easy money by giving false promises to the ex-employees of the company that they were giving out free club memberships, holiday memberships, health memberships, silver coin, complementary pots, passes to resorts and other facilities.

In order to build trust among their customers, they would invite them to hotels in the pretext that they won a lucky draw and conducted seminars to explain about their ventures. They purchased 11 acres of land in Jupally village, Charakonda Mandal, Nagarkurnool district to lure buyers to buy plots in them.  Eventually, they would register plots and when the victims would approach them to show the plots, they would bluff by saying that the plots were not available and convinced them to pay extra money to buy plots on the outskirts of the city. Upon a complaint from a victim, Punjagutta police traced the company’s fraudulent scheme and arrested the duo under section 420 of the IPC and ` 8.15 lakh worth of money was seized, besides register books and other documents. There were five other cases pending against them under the same IPC section.