Lucknow: STF busts Ponzi scheme, nabs 5 who made crores

LUCKNOW: With the arrest of five people on Saturday, the STF has claimed to have busted a gang which had duped innocents of crores in Ponzi schemes. The accused were running fake companies in the name of banking, textiles, media houses and real estate to trap people. The gang had duped several people in Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan and West Bengal.
Those arrested included Awnish Pandey aka Rahul (director of Grovel Trading House Pvt Ltd) and Sudhanshu Srivastava aka Prince (Director, Neelima Business and Corporate Pvt Ltd).Both companies were fake. Also arrested were Pradeep Sharma of Haryana who passed off as business promoter, Ahmad Miyan aka Raju of Pilibhit who was "sales manager" and Mohammed Sahil of Delhi as accountant.
The trio used to claim to work for both companies. It was after a businessman filed a case of being duped by the group that probe began.
ASP (STF) Vishal Vikram Singh said the gang had lured the 'investors' to double their money in three years and add a bonus of 50%. In another scheme, they prepared fake papers of plots and promised to give them away for a deposit of Rs 2,50,000 each. "To convince people, they showed exponential growth of the company in the stock market. This was fake," said Singh. Sharma disclosed to police that his former "mentor" Mannu Prashant Vig had opened a film city in NOIDA and had earned Rs 125 crore by forgery. The company was later would up and Vig faced a jail term. The gang had formed another company, Emperor, in 2016 in which two Bhojpuri film actors were directors.
They had made Rs 90 crore by duping innocent people under it. With another company, they had entered the sugarcane crushing business. Singh said an estimated Rs 250 crore had been amassed by the gang members by cheating and a probe was underway.