Sevla Kumar Nadar, owner of Ashtavinayak Investment, who now stands accused of pulling a Rs 300 cr fraud on his investors. (Express Photo)Even as existing investors of Pune-based Ashtavinayak Investment were forced to pay EMIs out of their own pockets as the company failed to deliver on the promised returns, some of them had knowingly continued to help owner Selva Kumar Nadar recruit new investors, The Indian Express has learned. Nadar was recruiting new clients until as recently as a week prior to him abruptly pulling down shutters on his offices and going incommunicado.
As they reached out to Selva and his staff with anxious requests for pending payments, existing investors – at least a section among them – were also recommending his schemes to potential investors when they called to enquire about the investment scheme and its potential benefits.
As per defrauded investors, things began to go awry in October 2022 with Ashtavinayak Investment failing to pay their EMI amounts before the 28th of every month. The firm was either delaying payments or making partial payments with requests to the client to pay the remainder out of their own pockets.
While some clients who were fed up with erratic EMI payments took to social media and other websites to write negative reviews, they received calls from Selva’s team telling them that it would only worsen the situation as the firm might not get new clients.
As part of the drill of luring a new client, the firm’s sales team would provide them with the contact details of three of their existing investors to make enquiries.
“If new clients don’t come, paying the pending EMIs and future EMIs will get tougher, putting the company’s and your own future in jeopardy, ” the existing investors were reportedly told by Selva and his staff.
These investors are now feeling guilty for having played a role in bringing new clients into the company’s net.
“We were being repeatedly told by Selva that these were temporary problems and he had a plan to clear things up. If things still don’t work, he said, he was ready to sell his assets to get money so that clients don’t suffer. He used to say that he has built Ashtavinayak after 13 years of hard work and he would not let his name and his brand be tainted, ” said a client who was often recommended by Ashtavinayak staff to speak to prospective clients.
Close to half a dozen new clients joined Ashtavinayak’s ‘profile investing’ programme in the last month before the firm shut, putting in borrowed funds ranging from Rs 36 lakh to Rs 1.3 cr in Selva’s company.
“I was very reluctant to invest money in the company despite receiving numerous calls from its executives. It was when I spoke to an existing investor who spoke positively about the safety of investment and its benefits, that I opened my mind to actually getting into this, ” said a ‘profile investor’, a term that Selva and his staff used for clients who used their credit profile to borrow personal loans and invest in the firm.
Many of the investors believed that hostels, jewelry shops and other assets reportedly owned by Selva could be liquidated to salvage things. It was only later that they learned that most of them were either rented or defunct.
There were acts of kindness too among the investors who had formed a WhatsApp group to share information about their troubles with Ashtavinayak. In February, when troubles at the firm peaked, a family that had received Rs lakh from Selva handed over the amount to another investor who desperately needed it for his father’s treatment.