Mumbai: Economic offences wing registers first case during lockdown

MUMBAI: The city economic offences wing (EOW) after a gap of two and a half months during the national lock down, registered its first case where a chartered accountant and 34 others were duped by a well known marketing firm Rs 9.5 core.
The three directors of the accused company, including two women, have been booked under the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors' (MPID) act. All the accused belong to one family.While the monthly cheating amount in EOW cases on an average is over Rs 300 crore, no cases were registered in the last two and half months.
Sanjay Malu, a CA, and 34 others told the EOW that the directors of the accused company,JSK Marketing Pvt Ltd.,induced them to deposit in the form of loan and promised 20% annual returns in the form of interest. "The complainant also deals into finance. The accused and complainant came in touch with each other in 2915, "The accused company's directors sought investments from the gullible investors priming high returns in the form of interest.They collected loans from the investors from 2016," said an EOW officer.
Police said that the accused told the investors that their company would invest this money into online shopping at an international online shopping platform. In mid March last year, the firm stopped making payment to the investors. "When the investors inquired why they were not getting the interest, they learnt the firm was raided by GST officials for submitting fake bills and that it was not into online trading," said the officer.The accused used the depositors' money allegedly for buying properties for themselves,added the officer.
Its noteworthy that the EOW, which specialises in probing the white-collar crimes, registers an average of 110 case a year involving cheating amount of more than Rs 3,600 crore. Last year,it registered PMC bank case where cheating amount is more than Rs4,700 crore and in the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank case cheating amount as per complaint is around Rs 25,000 crore. During the lockdown, the cops were busy in probing the cases and compiling charge sheets of previous cases. The JSK marketing case is the first offence registered since lockdown was announced.