MUMBAI:The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the city police on Sunday arrested six persons including the country head (sales) of accused chit fund company SpeakAsia, in the Rs 2,276-crore cheating case. All the accused have been remanded in police custody till Saturday.
Those arrested include SpeakAsia’s country head Sanjeev Mehta, Hemant Suryavanshi, Hemant Chavan, Sudhanshu Tripathy, Virendra Singh and Hasmukh Patel.
Suryavanshi, Chavan, Tripathy and Singh were SpeakAsia’s franchise holders while Patel, arrested from Ahmedabad, ran Patel communication franchise.
A city resident, Navneet Khosla, had filed a police complaint in July 2011 stating that the firm had promised a return of Rs 52,000 on his investment of Rs 11,000.
The accused had made over 24 lakh investors, called panelists. Each panelist would be given an online survey form to fill up and would gain points. If all the points turn out to be correct, he would be paid Rs 52,000 for completing a year’s survey.
Many accused challenged the police case saying they were doing pure business.
However, police filed its reply saying it was a criminal act. The police have recently invoked the sections of stringent law, Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (MPID) act and under this law as per court order attached properties could be auctioned to repay the investors.
Police said that the ‘manager model’ was Mehta’s brainchild. He would identify potential youths and would appoint them as managers in SpeakAsia to lure people.