The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Fraudster nabbed for ‘duping’ depositors

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Thursday, Jul 09, 2009
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Fraudster nabbed for ‘duping’ depositors

Staff Reporter

Annex India Securities mobilises Rs. 4.2 crore using multi-level marketing

Annex India Securities has 7,000 depositors, mostly from Chhattisgarh
Most of them fell prey as Patnaik offered tempting interest of 18 p.c. per month

HYDERABAD: An anonymous alert sent to the crime buster link of the police website helped the Hyderabad police arrest a private finance company owner who allegedly duped investors of Rs. 4.2 crore deposits having mobilised them using multi-level marketing mode.

Modus operandi

Most of depositors belonged to Chhattisgarh. The 7,000 depositors fell a prey to the tempting interest rate of 18 per cent a month offered by Harish Kumar Chandramahanti Patnaik, 23, of Annex India Securities.

Having earlier worked with different multi-level marketing companies, Patnaik was familiar with luring depositors and network of agents, the DCP, Detective Department, R.S. Praveen Kumar, told a press conference.

Patnaik joined hands with two more former colleagues to set up the company to make a fast buck in March. His agents, who were offered phenomenal commissions, went around Chhattisgarh luring depositors to invest money in the company using attractive brochures.

Online deposits

Within four months, the company could mobilise Rs. 7 crore. Patnaik gave away Rs. 2.8 crore to the depositors to win over them.

“To make sure he is not tracked down in the future, Patnaik asked all the depositors to send money online having developed a website of his company by investing Rs. 90,000,” the Detective Department DCP explained.

Multi-level existence

While claiming Annex company was into finance business, Patnaik got it registered as Annex Softtech Solutions Private Limited with the Registrar of Companies.

The website server was in America, the company’s plush office was located in Hyderabad and the ‘victims’ were from Chhattisgarh making it difficult for anyone to catch the company owner in case of a fraud.

But investigators found that there were nearly Rs. 3.5 crore deposits in Patnaik’s ICICI Bank account.

‘Freeze account’

Meanwhile, the ICICI Bank officials were being asked to freeze Patnaik’s account.

Already, an amount of Rs. 6 lakh was seized from the fraudster, the polic e said .

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