By IANS,
New Delhi : A businessman, on the run after being accused of cheating thousands of people of about Rs.500 million with his lucrative high interest return schemes, has been arrested, police said Friday.
“Following specific information, Naveen Sharma, the chairman of Money Mantra and Big Leap Multi Trade Ltd, was nabbed by the crime branch of Delhi Police from Dehradun in Uttarakhand Thursday,” a police officer said.
“Sharma was nabbed from a house in Dehradun, where he was hiding for the last three months. He was brought to Delhi and was formally arrested after questioning by the police,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Neeraj Thakur.
Sharma, an MBA, allegedly duped around 2,500 people of about Rs.500 million by promising them fixed returns of 10 percent per month on the principal amount. He did not pay his investors after November last year.
Majority of his investors were from the armed forces, including the Indian Army, Navy and National Security Guard.
Sharma would place advertisements in newspapers, distribute pamphlets and had also hired agents to canvass prospective investors.
To gain the confidence of investors, Sharma used to give four cheques – one undated cheque for refund of money actually invested and three cheques for interest of next three months at the rate of 10 percent.
“The basic membership fees of this scheme started from Rs.15,000, after which Rs.1,000 per month was assured for 36 months,” Thakur said.
“Sharma was running the firm for the last three years and would invest the money in the stock market after collecting it from different investors. He suffered huge losses in the stock market due to recession and the sudden downfall in the stock market last year,” Thakur said.
However, he continued paying fixed monthly returns to the investors as a face saver, due to which he fell deeper into the debt trap, police said.
“When he failed to pay money to his investors, he disappeared from his Gurgaon residence in April,” Thakur said.
“We were flooded with complaints from investors that when the cheques given by Sharma were presented in the bank, they were returned saying the account had insufficient funds,” he said.