NEW DELHI, Oct 8: A 52-year-old man was arrested for allegedly duping people to the tune of nearly Rs 5 crore on the pretext of getting them high returns on investing in his chit fund scheme, police said on Friday.
The accused identified as Pramod Kumar Sethi, a resident of West Patel Nagar in the city, has duped more than 17 victims so far, they said. Sethi targeted the victims who were personally known to him and induced them to invest in his chit fund scheme on assured monthly returns.
After collecting a lot of money from the victims, he stopped the scheme and despite requests refused to refund the invested amount on one pretext or another, according to police.
An FIR was registered against the accused in 2016 after victims alleged that Sethi was running a chit fund company and induced the public to invest in his scheme on the assurance of giving handsome monthly returns against their periodic investment, police said. “After assurances, these victims invested their money in the form of monthly installments in his chit fund scheme. But in 2015, Sethi stopped his chit fund scheme and neither did he pay their share in the collective corpus against the subscription nor returned their invested money,” said R K Singh, Additional Commissioner of Police (Economic Offences Wing).
The accused has caused wrongful gain to himself and wrongful loss to the victims to the tune of Rs 4.88 crore, he said.
“During the course of the investigation, the notebooks and photocopies of worksheets maintained by accused containing the details of chit fund scheme, investors and their subscription amount were seized and sent to Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) for forensic examination. It was confirmed from the FSL that the entries were made by the accused in the notebooks and copy of worksheets,” Singh said.
A team under the supervision of ACP Virender Thakran arrested the accused on October 5 after ascertaining his criminal culpability and making a foolproof case against the accused, the police said, adding further investigation is underway. (PTI)
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