New Delhi/Mumbai:
A Ukrainian actor was arrested in a Ponzi scam that cheated hundreds in Mumbai promising high investments yields. Earlier this month, Torres Jewery, who operated several stores in Mumbai, closed after collecting millions of investors.
Armen Ataine, a Ukrainian actor, has been arrested by the Wing of Economic Crimes of the Mumbai Police for his alleged role in helping the intellectual authors, who are also Ukrainian, in the mega scam.
Until now, six people have been arrested in the case and a hunt is underway to locate the intellectual authors. Mumbai’s police have concentrated on two Ukrainian citizens, Artem and Olena Stain, for their alleged role. According to the police, the two played a key role in the conspiracy of how people can be attracted with great yields of their investment in precious stones, gold and silver.
The Ponzi scheme
Torres points of sale opened in February last year in six locations in and around the maximum city. They sold jewelry of precious stones and also offered a bonus scheme. According to this scheme, a client who invested RS 1 Lakh would get a pendant with a Moissanite stone worth 10,000.
Customers have now realized that these stones were false. Customers were promised 6 percent interest in their investment that will be paid for 52 weeks. This interest rate rose to 11 percent. The clients said they obtained some payments during the last year, but they stopped about two months ago.
The bumper raffle
Earlier this month, Torres published a video on YouTube announcing that it will provide interest of 11 percent in the investments made before January 5, after which the rate will be submerged. The company encouraged cash payments by offering additional interest of 0.5 percent. The movement aimed to draw an avalanche of investments. On January 6, stores were closed and investors realized that they had been scammed.
Investors
Most of these investors are from the lower middle class and include vegetable vendors and small merchants that were attracted to the promise of great yields. The amount invested under this scheme varies from a few thousand rupees to millions of rupees. The seven people who filed the police complaint said they had invested more than 13 million rupees among them.
One of the investors with which NDTV spoke said that his friends told him about the scheme. “We obtained some payments. We want to ask the government, if you have taxes. So why aren’t you helping us now?”
When asked what made him trust the scheme, an investor said the brochure had the company’s GST and CIN numbers. “I thought it is so systematic, so the government must be aware of this. I request the Government, we do not want interest, but that they return our money.”
GOP OF COMPANY CLAIMS
Last week, the official YouTube account of Torres uploaded a video, claiming that its CEO led a coup d’etat and facilitated theft in the company’s exhibition rooms. “Under the leadership of two employees of Torres, the CEO Tausif Reyaz and the chief analyst Abhishek Gupta, a coup d’etat in the team was organized tonight and Torres stores were stolen,” says the voice in off.
The video shows people destroying stores and stealing money. The voiceover described these people as “accomplices” of Reyaz and Gupta. “Previously, we knew that they organized a fraudulent scheme and systematically appropriated the company’s money for many months … realizing that the punishment was inevitable for them, they decided to involve other employees in their crime,” he added.