Karnataka: Ponzi firm leaves 200 investors in the lurch

Bengaluru: In a scam, estimated to be over Rs 300 crore, a man allegedly duped over 200 investors through his two fake firms by offering lucrative returns on investment amount.

He lured investors with monthly 10-20 per cent fixed returns, besides offering to double the amount in four months.The actual identity of the accused is yet to be ascertained. He used to introduce himself under various aliases, including Wajid SK, Abdul Wajid, Javid Patel. He has been on the run for the past one month, leaving the investor, mostly residents of Pulikeshi Nagar, in the lurch. In his visiting card, he mentioned he was a business associate of LKP Securities Ltd - a securities brokerage firm.

Interestingly, the fraudulent businessman never provided any  receipt to investors, about the money deposited. And investors too were not insistent as they initially got 10 per cent monthly interest.Needless to say, not even a single investor has a proof about the money deposited in the two firms. The only thing they now are left with is an account in an App opened by Wajid’s dubious company’s backend staff, where they used to see the status of deposited money, which has now disappeared.

It is learnt that Wajid established two fake investment firms, Capital Plus and Capital Infrastructure, in August 2017 on Wheeler Road, which was later shifted to Frazer Town.Initially, the firms accepted money from the investors and offered good returns. As the news spread, more and more people came forward to deposit money. The investors were told that the firms deal with share market, forex and cryptocurrency.

“I came to know about Capital Plus through my friend who had already invested in it and received good returns. I invested Rs. 1 lakh in October last week and received Rs 4,000 returns in a week. I got Rs 10,000 in November and December, after which the payments stopped. When I checked my account in the App, the Rs 1 lakh balance had come down to Rs 3,000. Upon enquiry, I was told that it was due to a technical snag. They kept postponing the date of returns citing different reasons until January 8, when we learnt that the company was a dubious and its owner was absconding,” an investor told Deccan Chronicle on condition of anonymity.

As on Sunday, four complaints have been filed against the accused at Pulikeshi Nagar police station.According to police, individuals have invested from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 50 lakh in the firms, most of them in cash and the accused had also promised flats to people investing huge amounts.

Fake identity
Wajid was clever enough to not reveal his actual identity to cover his tracks.He made identity cards with dubious names and rented a house in Ganga Nagar and offices at Wheeler Road and Frazer Town on different persons' names.

“We have no clue about him and his past. He hasn’t left behind anything which could come in handy for us to trace him.He has told his customers that he was from Hyderabad. We doubt that,” a police source said.

Additional Commissioner of Police (East) Seemanth Kumar Singh said that teams have been formed to trace the accused under the DCP (East) Ajay Hilory.