Nagpur.
Nagpur has been reeling under the murky tag of city of financial scams as alarming number of gullible investors lost crores of rupees into the lure of money multipying ponzi schemes. The notorious financial frauds have litellary damaged the credibility factor of the city during the last 5 years which saw some of the most bizarre investment scams in the city. So much is the intensity of the evil minds that the directors of four companies from the city duped over 10,000 investors promising lucrative returns. The total worth of the scams is over Rs. 3,000 crores.
Nagpur Today looks back into 5 most killer financial scams.
Wasankar Scam
Prashant Wasankar has eroded the hard earn money of over 2000 people by offering them quantum hike in their sum within short span of time. Wasankar allegedly charged huge amount membership as much as Rs. 1 lakh per annum and collected over Rs 2000 crore. He assured the depositors by giving them post dated cheques offering around 30% interest on deposit. Prashant Wasankar’s new house is Nagpur Central Jail and it does not look like he will manage to get bail in coming years.
Mahadeo Land Developers – Pramod Agrawal
In 2011, Pramod Agrawal duped thousands of people of their hard earned money through his fraudulent Mahadeo Land Developers and Kalamna society. The conman did not spare even the daily wage labourers. He duped over 3-4 thousand people to the tune of Rs 500 crores. This firm collected money from the public with a promise of doubling it in two and a half years. It claimed that rapid appreciation in land prices due to the Mihan-fuelled boom will generate enough profits to allow such returns. The money Mahadeo Developers collected was projected to be invested only in plots of land near Mihan SEZ, but even property in other districts was bought.
ShreeSurya Scam
In 2013, the notorious Shreesurya scam came to light that crushed the hopes of thousands of people. Sameer and Pallavi Joshi duped thousands of people to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore. Charges were filed against the couple on Spetember 14, 2013 and the matter is subjudice.
Jhamre Couple Fraud
In 2012, Warsha and Jayant Jhamre duped over 500 people of crores of rupees through their JS Finances.
The couple had floated an investment firm, J S Finance and Savings in 2010 and invited investments by offering up to six per cent interest per month. While the investors initially got returns of their money, subsequent cheques started bouncing. When the investors lodged a complaint, the duo went missing. Varsha was arrested but Jhamre continued to dodge the police, with speculations about a prominent politician being shielding him. Later Jhamre was also arrested from Wadi locality after police received a tip-off that he had sneaked into the city.
Raviraj Group Scam
Raviraj Group’s Rajesh Joshi defaulted gullible investors of crores of rupees. Dhantoli police has registered an FIR against Joshi and eight others under Sections 420, 406 and 120(B) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and also under the provisions of Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors Act (MPID), 1999. Joshi was arrested on August 7 while other accused filed anticipatory bail applications in the courts where cases were pending.
Other scams that rocked the city were the Aman and Rajeshri Hemani scam of Rs 200 crore and the Nagpur District Central Cooperative Bank scam of Rs 175 crore.
