Two persons, including a former police constable, were arrested by the city police for cheating people by promising high returns on investments in their multi-level marketing scheme, also called pyramid scheme.
The sleuths of Commissioner’s Task Force (West Zone) nabbed the accused on Saturday and sealed four bank accounts, which had a balance of ₹1.73 crore. They also seized ₹6 lakh cash and 30 grams of gold from their possession. The duo have been identified as J. Shyam Sunder (48), a former police constable and resident of Kodad in Suryapet district, and P. Vasu Deva (26), assistant film-maker and a native of Rajahmundry in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh. In-charge Hyderabad Police Commissioner V.V. Srinivasa Rao said that the duo had cheated around 350 people to the tune of ₹4.52 crore in the last two months.
They floated a company named e-Cash Trade Securities and enrolled around 400 members with 6,500 accounts. They lured people promising high returns within 100 days of investing money in different schemes. For instance, if a person deposited ₹70,000, they were offered a return of ₹1,400 per day for 100 days. They were offered additional commission for bringing in new depositors. “Besides high returns and commission, the accused promised 100 square yards of open plot at Kolanupaka village in Yadadri district to their ‘Diamond package’ members,” said the Commissioner.
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They reportedly collected huge amounts from housewives, retired employees and private employees and asked them to deposit money directly in their accounts through e-banking. Sundar and Naidu collected ₹4.52 crore in the past 30 days and repaid some amount as commission to the enrolled customers. The Commissioner said that while the first 50 depositors profited, the rest were cheated.
Mr. Srinivasa Rao revealed that Sundar had a history of cheating people in the guise of multi-level marketing. He had floated two companies – Ocean Blue at Chaitanyapuri and Multi Max at Benz circle in Vijayawada for this purpose.