CHENNAI: The city police on Wednesday arrested the chairman and seven directors of the Swarnatara Group for allegedly cheating 86 persons of Rs 3.89 crore.
Officers of the Central Crime Branch (CCB) said a case was registered based on a complaint filed by one Rajagopal who in 2015 was promised 100% profits by the executive directors of the group.
They lured him by projecting that the company had received permission from the RBI to get investments from customers and it would be pumped into projects of companies in UK and Australia, police said.
Rajagopal received the profits as promised for three years after which he and 60 of his relatives invested Rs 2.4 crore. After this, the company neither paid the profits nor returned the amount.
An investigation revealed many others had been cheated of several crores using the same modus operandi. The case is being investigated by the Entrustment Document Fraud (EDF-II) wing of the CCB.
The arrested persons were identified as chairman Venkatranga Gupta (58), directors DK Hariharan (58), Vijayasri Gupta (54), Kavitha Sakthi (49), Prathisha Gupta (29), Jayasanthosh (25), and Jayavignesh (25).
Their office and homes were searched and Rs 4.5 lakh, 44 sovereign gold and diamond, two luxury cars, laptops, 14 cell phones and documents were seized, police added.