In Ratnagiri, the couple was living under the false names Sidhharth Jay Marathe and Maya Marathe, along with their three children were arrested for a fraud of Rs.500 crores. Their fraud story matches with the bollywood film Bunty aur Babli.
Earlier, the couple used to get high-value credit cards in fake names and buy expensive items and disappear without leaving any trace. The first of forgery or cheating case against Khaire was registered in 2004 in Nagpur, but he managed to evade his arrest and came to Pune and worked in a call centre for few months.
“From Pune, he went to Bangalore and started working in a finance company, where he met his wife Raksha. After marriage they left Bangalore and reached Lucknow with an assumed name of Rohit and Kanchan Khatri. They then left Lucknow and went to Ahmedabad and started living as Dr Raj and Dr Priya Zaveri, from there they shifted to Bhubaneshwar
During this period, they applied for credit cards and bought expensive items and leave quietly. But when they reached Ahmedabad, banks got some hint and the couple was refused credit cards, so they went to Dehradun and opened an educational institution in the assumed name of Dr Rakesh Kumar and Dr Prachi Maheshwari.
After collecting fees and documents, the couple fled and came to Delhi to establish Stock Guru India (SGI).
SGI is a multi-level marketing (MLM) company that promised 20% returns per month. The company describes itself as the country’s ‘Premier Financial Consultancy’, offering trading solutions in equity, derivatives, currency futures, commodities trading, initial public offerings (IPOs), insurance (life/non-life), general insurance, mutual funds, portfolio management services and terminal handling, all under one roof.
The MLM company’s investment plan was very simple. You pay a minimum Rs10,000 as investment and Rs1,000 as registration fees. There is no limit on the maximum amount one can invest. It offers a return of 20% per month for up to six months and the principal amount invested is returned in the next six months. It also gives post-dated cheques of the principal and a promissory note as security. In short, on an investment of Rs11,000, the company offers to pay Rs12,000 in six months and the rest Rs10,000 over the next six months, that is a total of Rs22,000 or a 120% return in a year.
Such huge returns were suspicious, given the volatility in the market, but it did manage to attract a lot of investors.
SGI is not registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) as an investment adviser, but still offers to trade on behalf of clients. It also operated without any trading licence from the Reserve Bank of India and SEBI. So, will the regulators take any action against the officials of the company?
“After a hunt of one year, Ulhas Prabhakar Khaire also called as Lokeshwar Dev Jain, 33, a resident of Nagpur, and his 30-year-old wife Raksha J. Urs were arrested from Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri town by the sleuths of Delhi Police Economic Offences Wing for duping over two lakh people from Delhi, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
