By IANS,
New Delhi : Bank drafts of over Rs.19 crore and an ill-gotten property in Maharashtra were detected during the on-going probe into the Rs.493 crore fraud by investment company Stock Guru India, police said Tuesday.
The fresh seizures followed questioning of accused Ulhas Prabhakar Khaire, 33. He and his wife Raksha J. Urs, 30, were arrested from Ratnagiri in Maharashtra earlier this month.
Recently, their interrogation led the investigators to bank drafts worth Rs.19.96 crore and a plot which they had bought from investors’ money. The recoveries were made from various places in Ratnagiri and Mumbai, police said.
“We have also seized high-value watches which could be used for video recording, and seven fancy vehicles, toy pistols and some spy equipments from their possession,” said Joint Commissioner of Police (Economic Offences Wing) Sandeep Goel.
Some of the other items that were recovered from the couple’s possession included 18 PAN cards, currency counting machine, printing machine, passports, debit, ATM and credit cards of various banks, cheque books and mobile phones.
Raksha is in judicial custody and Ulhas is in police custody till Dec 3.
Police have so far seized properties and articles worth Rs.83 crore from the couple alleged to have committed the fraud by cheating two lakh people by luring them to invest in their firm.
The officer said Ulhas and Raksha had cheated many people in Ratnagiri as well by launching four new companies that dealt with various businesses, including training people to get into the tinsel world.
“We also recovered 20 contact lenses which Ulhas used to cheat people by changing his looks. We also found spy cameras, mobile jammers and other equipment from his properties and rented premises,” Goel said.
Goel said the couple had finalised the script and director for producing a Marathi movie and had advertised that they would train actors and actresses.
According to the officer, the couple was active in Delhi in the past one year and ran away from the city in February with the investors’ money.
The couple was also involved in several other cases of cheating, forgery and fraud in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Sikkim and Maharashtra, Goel said.