B’luru: Police arrest chit fund director for allegedly cheating 170 people of Rs 40 crore

Team Udayavani, Feb 17, 2022, 11:17 AM IST

Banashankari police have arrested one person accused of cheating 170 people to the tune of Rs 40 crore after promising 24 per cent annual returns on their invested amount.

Acting on the complaints received by the investors, police arrested Anantha Ram, 58, the director of Panchamukhi Groups while two of his partners Shankar and manager Varun Raj are absconding. Anantha Ram was produced before a court that remanded him to police custody.

A case has been booked against the trio for cheating, criminal breach of trust, criminal conspiracy under IPC sections and under the relevant provisions of the Karnataka Protection of Interest Depositors Exorbitant Act and the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Act.

According to a DHNS report, the Panchamukhi Groups has been operational since 2017 and paid the promised monthly returns to its investors for a brief period. However later the installments stopped and they failed to return the principal amount to its investors. On February 3, this year the investors were shocked to find the firm’s office closed.

A police complaint was filed on February 8 by one of the investors alleging that he along with members of his family had invested nearly Rs 57 lakh in the firm after they were promised 24 percent annual returns.

Following this complaint, several other investors too came forward to lodge similar complaints. According to the preliminary police investigations around 500 people may have been defrauded by the company.