Shell company director arrested for diversion of Earth Group funds

Noida: The Noida crime branch has arrested a director of one of the 10 shell companies floated for diversion of money of investors in different real estate projects of the Earth Group across India, including Earth Titanium Studios in Greater Noida’s Techzone 4.
Ratan Vijayvargiya, the director of Astha Fincap, who had been evading arrest for the past few years, was nabbed from his Rohini home in Delhi on Sunday night. Police said he and his friend Mukul Garg had helped the jailed directors of the Earth Group in floating the 10 shell firms to siphon off a portion of Rs 168 crore collected from 8,000 investors in various Earth Group projects across the country. Garg is currently in judicial custody.
Additional DCP (Noida) Ranvijay Singh said that the accused was produced in the Surajpur court on Monday and sent to judicial custody.
“Three cases were lodged against Garg and Vijayvargiya at the Sector 20 police station in 2017 for cheating, forgery and criminal breach of trust etc. The duo facilitated the diversion of investors’ money to the shell companies, where the kin of the Earth Group directors are directors,” he said.
The four directors of the Earth Group — Atul Gupta, Vikas Gupta, Awadhesh Goyal and Rajnish Mittal — have been lodged in Tihar jail since their arrests by the economic offences wing of Delhi Police last year for allegedly cheating investors on the pretext of allotment of flats, shops, commercial spaces in its proposed projects in various cities. Their wives, currently on the run, have been declared as proclaimed offenders by Noida police.
In total, 50 FIRs have been lodged against the Earth Group and its directors in five states.
Noida police had also booked them under the Gangster Act, along with few others, on complaints by Titanium Studios buyers. The project that was launched in 2013, is yet to take off.