A man has been arrested in a chit fund fraud case, the police said on Friday.
The accused — Mool Chand — was arrested by the Economic Offences Wing of Delhi Police. Chand lured people from his locality for investing in his chit fund scheme by offering handsome returns and liquid funds, said an officer.
The matter came to the fore when a complaint was filed by 24 victims alleging that Chand lured them to invest as a monthly deposit in the scheme, which was floated with 20 shares of ₹10,000 each for a period of 20 months.
He had collected around ₹50 lakhs from the victims and also issued cheques to some of them against their investment. After collecting money from the victims, he sold his house and absconded with his family, the police added.
After conducting preliminary enquiry into the complaint, a case under Sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 120 B (Criminal Conspiracy) and other relevant sections of the IPC was then registered.
“The Prize Chits & Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act was registered in March and probe was taken up. During investgation, it was revealed that Chand used to run a small manufacturing unit of disposable paper plates at his house. After suffering losses, he started the scheme to earn easy money,” an officer said.
The investigation revealed that the accused used to accept the monthly deposit in cash and maintained registers for keeping records of subscribers and their respective shares, he said.
“The cheques, later on, got dishonoured upon presentation. In January 2021, the money was to be paid back in a lump sum after maturity. When the victims started asking Chand to pay them back, he sold his house and fled off,” he added. He was tracked on the basis of surveillance and arrested on Thursday, the police said, adding further investigation in the case is going on.
