HYDERABAD: In the name of providing club membership and holiday packages, a duo allegedly scammed people in the city to the tunes of `9 crore. Based out of an office space in Khairatabad, the proprietors of Fortune group of estates and services were arrested by the police after a complaint was raised against them by one of the victims. The conspiracy to cheat the public was hatched by Shaik Khadar Basha and P Vijay Kumar, according to the police. Speaking to media persons, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Task Force, P Radhakishan Rao said that the accused used to work at Country Club, Begumpet.
In June 2017, they bought a company, Priority Services, despite being aware that the company was running in losses. After this, they re-branded it as Fortune group of estates and services and conspired to make easy money by giving false promises to ex-employees of the company that they were giving out free club memberships, holiday memberships, health memberships, silver coins, passes to resorts and other facilities. In order to build trust among their customers, they would invite them to hotels on the pretext that they won a lucky draw and conducted seminars to explain about their ventures.
They purchased 11 acres of land in Jupally village, Charakonda Mandal, Nagarkurnool district to lure buyers into buying plots there. Eventually, they would register plots and when the victims would approach them to see the plots, they would bluff them by saying that the plots were not available and convinced them to pay extra money to buy plots on the outskirts of the city.
Upon a complaint from one of the victims, the north zone police traced the company’s fraudulent scheme and arrested the duo under section 420 of the IPC. They were arrested by the Punjagutta police and `8.15 lakh in cash was seized from them, besides register books and other documents. There were five other cases pending against them under the same IPC section.
Modus operandi
The duo purchased 11 acres of land in Nagarkurnool
They would lure customers into buying plots there
Later, they would bluff interested buyers by claiming that plots were not available at the said site, and would convince them to buy plots of outskirts on Hyderabad at an additional cost
SWIGGY respons to Express report
Responding to a news item published in these columns titled “Swiggy, ISB, Indigo under scanner for GST evasion”, Swiggy management has claimed that they have been consistently paying all the applicable taxes on their revenues. “This includes both charges for delivery service provided to the customers and commission we earn from the restaurants, for using our marketplace services,” said an official communique