Mumbai Crime: 11 investors cheated of Rs 2 crore in investment scam; 1 held, 2 booked

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The Malwani police have booked three and arrested a software engineer who along with his younger brother and one friend allegedly duped more than Rs 2 crore of 11 investors on the pretext of giving a huge return on their investment amount every month.

The arrested accused has been identified as Kishan Katnhar (34), Niraj Katnhar (31) and Anwar Ansari (28) who is Niraj's friend.

Kishan was arrested from Charkop on August 31 while Niraj and Ansari are still at large. According to the police, Niraj is hiding outside Maharashtra, while Ansari escaped to Dubai where he is running a Cafe.

Complainant Mohammed Irfan Khan (28), who runs a catering business in Malwani, approached the Malvani police and registered a complaint in the month of January this year

As per the statement given to the police, Khan along with other family members invested more than Rs 92 lakh with the accused between November 2016 to December 2017.

Also read: Mumbai: 50-year-old man loses Rs 17.50 lakh in bitcoin investment fraud

Anwar Ansari (L), Niraj Katnhar (M), Kishan Katnhar

Ansari, who is a friend of Khan approached him with an investment scheme run by the accused living in the Bhandup area.

Khan said he initially invested Rs 1 lakh and for about 5 to 6 months, he received Rs 15,000 returns per month. Following this, he told the family members, who in turn started investing in this scheme. After investing Rs 92 lakh, the family stopped receiving returns.

The accused used to call the investors to their office in Bhandup where showed them live pictures of the stock market on TV and told them that their money has been invested here.

"They also used to show people fake screenshots in which profit was visible to win their trust. More than 11 people invested about Rs 2 crores," said an officer.

When people stop getting returns, they approached the accused to get their money back. But all attempts went in vain. The complainant in his statement told the police the accused threatened him by showing weapons when he forced and asked for his money.

A special team was framed under the supervision of senior inspector Shekhar Bhalerao. API Nilesh Salunkhe and his team managed to arrest Kishan from the Charkop area last week.