Mumbai: Brokerage firm director & owners arrested for duping investor of Rs 1.54 crore

The Vile Parle police have busted a financial scam wherein a brokerage firm duped investors to the tune of Rs 1.54 crore. According to a report by Mid-Day, Artha Vriddhi Securities director Sunil Jain and owners- Dhiren Shukla and Anurag Shukla have been arrested by the police.

While a fourth accused Jairaj Bafna, who is a business consultant, is on the run. Reportedly, the firm allegedly approached its targets and offered help to manage their trading account in order to make the most benefit. The accused then used to furnish fake transaction details to the targeted person and diverted the profit to their relatives.

The scam came to light after Sunil Giri, a Bandra resident and a property dealer, filed a complaint. The report stated that the scam was started in July 2019 when he was approached by Artha Vriddhi Securities' senior manager, who set up a meeting between Giri, Jain, and Bafna in October the same year.

Giri accepted the offer and the accused set up a demat account for Giri's firm named Blue Sea International. He told the police that the accused used to send him transaction records and profit and loss reports.

In June 2021, the senior manager called Giri's firm and stated that Jain and Bafna were duping them by not trading properly and further alleged that the accused had duped one person named Manish Shah earlier using the same modus operandi.

In order to cross verify the allegations, on July 2021, Giri asked the accused to 37,500 shares of Sun Pharma, which he was supposed to have. Two days later he received an email about the transaction and when he cross-checked, he found that Artha Vrddhi Securities bought only 8,400 shares of the firm, that were sold later.

Giri approached the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and a probe was conducted. NSE found that the duo siphoned off crores of rupees and they calculated the loss caused to Giri by the accused at Rs 1,54,00,000.