The Economic Offences Wing of the Mumbai police on Friday arrested the chairman of a firm that has been under the scanner since 2010 for allegedly running a multi-level investment scheme. The police said the firm has cheated around two lakh people to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore.
According to EOW officials, the accused, Balasaheb Bhapkar, set up two companies named M/S Sai Prasad Properties Ltd in Goa and M/S Sai Prasad Food Ltd in Pune in 2001, and set up offices across the country, including in Mumbai.
“The companies ran collective investment schemes through a hierarchy of agents, promising returns as high as 12 to 15 per cent per annum, and even offered land as collateral, despite the fact that the companies did not possess adequate land to cover the amount of money that they received. The schemes were being operated from 2001 to 2015, in which close to two lakh investors paid a collective amount of Rs 2,000 crore to the company,” said joint commissioner of police Dhananjay Kamalakar, EOW.
Kamalakar said the accused refrained from obtaining registration certificates from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to avoid scrutiny. When the Sebi did find out about the companies’ operations and issued notices to them in January 2015, they allegedly kept running the schemes. On December 2, the Sebi registered an FIR against the companies with the EOW.
