The Central Crime Station police on Tuesday arrested four persons, including a 45-year-old notorious cheat and his two wives, for allegedly running a money circulation scheme and duping people of Rs 10 crore.
Police also seized five vehicles including a Skoda Rapid car, three computers, a camera worth Rs 1.50 lakh, a Plasma TV set, Rs 50,000 in cash, documents pertaining to 42 acres of land and gold ornaments worth Rs 5 lakh. The accused are Jinna Sriknath, M Venkat Reddy, and Srikanth’s wives Jinna Mita and K Ahalya _ all of Kompally. They were involved in several cases of cheating and misappropriation to the tune of Rs 10 crore.
They lured customers with attractive advertisements and brochures offering them huge returns for short-term investments in their schemes in short periods of time. They floated fake companies such as Maha Life Online Marketing, Maha Life Homes, Maha Life Publications, Maha Life Clinics, Maha Life Media, Maha Life Inno-marketing, Maha Life Home (real estate and constructions) and Maha Life Gold.
Deputy commissioner of police (CCS) LKV Ranga Rao said the accused lured the public with initial subscription of Rs 13,680 per month for a period of two years and earn one gold necklace or a 150 sq yard house-site or refund of double the subscription. Lured by the offer, many gullible people invested in Maha Life Online Marketing and the operators collected Rs 5 crore from 3,000 subscribers within a short time.
After collecting money, they changed the company’s name to Maha Life Infrastructure to deceive the investors and to escape from the jaws of law.
The case was investigated by the CCS police on a complaint received from the victims in 2007. Srikanth secured anticipatory bail from court but faces its cancellation for not adhering to the conditions imposed by the court.
Meanwhile, the same gang floated another dubious company in the name and style of Green Gold Infrastructure and this time they targeted farmers through agents and dealers who promoted the scheme to buy organic manure from them. For this, they collected deposits from dealers and supplied fake organic manure. In this nefarious scheme also the accused collected crores of rupees. Acting on a specific complaint received from victims, another case was registered in 2009. Srikanth was arrested and remanded in judicial custody, and was released on bail later.
Srikanth then floated another dubious company, Jinna Trading Company, and targeted shopkeepers promising them to supply the machinery and raw material to manufacture eco-friendly paper bags and collected from Rs 12,500 to Rs 5 lakh from each shopkeeper depending on area. The machinery supplied by him was already available in the market for Rs 20,000 or 30,000 only. The machine supplied by him was not the one to make eco-friendly paper bags but it was a simple sealing machine. They sold area wise franchise to dealers and amassed crores of rupees. Even that machinery became redundant in a short span of time. Acting on complaints, police registered another case at CCS in 2012.
To evade arrest, they went into hiding. They moved from place to place and changed their SIM cards about 30 times. Separate cases are being registered against Srikanth for obtaining three income-tax PAN cards in fictitious names. He also obtained a passport by furnishing false information about his name and date of birth, for which another case is being registered against him.