PUNE: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on Wednesday arrested the director of an investment firm, along with his woman accomplice, for allegedly cheating as many as 21 people of Rs11.26 crore between July 2020 and October 2021 by promising them handsome returns on their investments.
A majority of the investors are members of a prominent ashram in Koregaon Park and hail from Germany and France, police said.
One of the duped investors, Sureshkumar Appalraju Verma (43) of Koregaon Park, lodged a complaint against the director, the woman accomplice, and four others with the Koregaon Park police on Wednesday. Police have also invoked provisions of the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (MPID) Act in the case.
Inspector Babasaheb Koli of EOW told TOI, “We have arrested Natrajan Balasubramanyam (43) and his woman accomplice Poonam Bhalerao (31), of Koregaon Park in the case. As of now, we have received complaints from 21 investors. We expect more people to file their complaints.”
Koli said the police had received the complaint against the firm about a month ago. “Upon investigation, we realised that it was a major investment fraud,” he said.
“Balasubramanyam is a CA by profession. He started this firm a few years back and the arrested woman was working with the firm,” Koli said.
“Under the scheme, people were to invest a certain amount for 18 months, following which Balasubramanyam was to pay interest of 3% to the investors on the monthly basis. Along with the monthly interest on the investment, he promised a part of the basic investment to the investors. Balasubramanyam also gave receipts of the investment and signed on the agreement documents,” he said.
