The Crime Branch of Jammu and Kashmir police has registered an FIR against four residents of Haryana for duping people of Rs 1.5 crore on the pretext of giving bonus income after every 15 days of investment of money in their company.
The fraud came to light after some local residents, hailing from different districts of the Union Territory, lodged a written complaint against the accused - Balwinder Kumar, Sushil Kumar, Deepak and Sandeep Kumar, a spokesman of the Crime Branch said on Saturday.
"A formal case has been registered and investigation started after preliminary inquiry established that the accused have hatched a criminal conspiracy to cheat and extort money from the complainants and others," he said.
They had swindled Rs 1.5 crore by unlawful and fraudulent means on the pretext of giving bonus income every 15 days of investment of money in the company Messrs Swarn Bhav Gold Private Limited, the spokesman said.
In their complaint, the spokesman said Mohammad Younis of Pulwama, Asrar Ahmad of Srinagar, Ayaz Ahmad of Poonch and Mushtaq Ahmad Dar of Rajouri alleged that Swarn Bhav Gold Private Limited came to Jammu and Kashmir in October 2017 and launched a programme after conducting seminars at different hotels.
The spokesman said the company falsely lured the public to invest money and get bonus income after every 15 days and further told them to create a network to get more additional income. With such a modus operandi, the company collected Rs 2 crore from residents in the UT over the course of three months via cash as well as bank transactions.
"The complainants and others whoever invested the money got their bonus well in time at the initial stage, but thereafter their bonuses got stopped. When the complainants and investors contacted the accused persons, they were told that some software problem has come up in the company's gadgets and they will get the money returned when that gets solved," the spokesman said.
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When the complainants approached the accused persons after some time, they were told that the company had suffered a huge loss, he said.
Later, when the complainants visited Balwinder Kumar's residence in Haryana's Kaithal district, he gave them five cheques worth Rs 65 lakh but the cheques were not entertained by the banks due to lack of sufficient amount in the account of the accused, the spokesman said.
He said the accused persons have cheated the complainants and others intentionally, deliberately and willfully with a prior criminal intention not to return the money received by them.