57,904 investors lose Rs 368 cr in financial frauds
Date :30-Apr-2019
Staff Reporter;
Nagpur is fast becoming a hub for floating fraudulent financial schemes and swindlers who dupe gullible investors and then simply vanish into thin air leaving thousands of people in a lurch. In a shocking revelation, the investigating machinery has confirmed that a whopping 57,904 investors have been duped by fraudsters to the tune of Rs 3,68,37,89,989 /- within 1,519 days (four year and two months) across the city. The police have managed to recover Rs 1,47,45,50,934/- from the economic offenders that is barely 40 per cent of the total amount lost. City Police in its reply to an RTI query filed by activist Abhay Kolarkar informed that a total of 75 economic offences were registered in the city from January 1, 2015 to February 28, 2019. Of them, 12 offences were related to the banks.
The police have arrested 138 persons including scamsters and office- bearers of Arvind Cooperative Bank, Elina Employment Resources Firm, Wasankar Wealth Management Ltd, Shikshak Sahkari Bank, VV Investment Ltd, Venus FX Company, Saiprakash Development Ltd, Qnet Science, Dhokeshwar Multi-state Urban Cooperative credit society, Vermicopompst project, Samruddhi Jeevan Multi Purpose Co-Op society. Along with these, the police have also filed cases pertaining to Bitcoin scam and various bogus share market schemes. A police officer said that even the promoters of such schemes always create third party interests over all the movable and immovable properties owned by them so that the money of the gullible investors could not be recovered.
From last one decade, Pramod Agrawal of Mahadeo Land Developers, Jayant and Varsha Zambre of J S Financial Services, Sameer Joshi of Shree Surya, Raviraj group and now Wasankar Wealth Management Group, the script is more or less same. Lure of high returns, flashy promotions, impressing initial investors by showering them with gifts and promised returns, the modus operandi is strikingly identical, yet every time they are able to dupe investors. In every case, hundreds of crores have been swallowed by scamsters without leaving any money trail.
Modus operandi of the swindlers
Despite apparently unbelievable claims made by such fly-by-night scamsters, why so many people invest their hard-earned money in such schemes ?
According to experts, the smooth operations by such financial wizkids rarely evoke suspicion as they are able to market their schemes so effectively. Initially, they make it a point to honour the commitment. The beneficiaries become brand ambassadors and often promote such schemes within his family and friends. This effective publicity and seemingly legitimate nature of the operations then create a mass hysteria and people repose faith in such investment Gurus hoping that he will deliver and multiply their money in record time. Lethargy of investigating machinery and regulatory bodies to crack the whip before things go out of hands, is another reason, as to why such schemes run for fairly long period. A basic check about valid permissions from the SEBI or RBI to collect money or invest in stock market, could have prevented most of the scams right in the initial phase.
But lure of fast money, financial illiteracy and apathy by regulators also helped the scamsters in amassing huge money and once the bubble pricked, the whole thing came crashing down. Though Wasankar Group was in news for all the wrong reasons since last few months and it came to fore that even basic statutory norms were being brazenly violated, the regulating agencies did precious little, giving lot of chance to the group to either park the collected money or tweak the documents to dilute their liability. The track-record of authorities in auctioning the properties of scamsters is quite dismal.
Under MPID the properties can be swiftly attached, trial can be conducted in special MPID court and ill-gotten money transferred to any third party can also be recovered. But very often, the fraudsters are able to stall the proceedings due to very complex nature of operations. After some time, the scamsters walk out of jail and resume their fraudulent activities by floating another company promising high return in very short span type scheme to attract innocent investors.