The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) Police here have arrested A. Vinod (28) and his father Annadurai of Ganapathy Maa Nagar for allegedly cheating investors by usurping more than Rs. 7 crore from nearly 40 investors in their firms from 2014. EOW Inspector C. Chandraseelan said that the accused were from Trichy and were running a chain of pharmacies, fancy stores, and grocery shop in Coimbatore. Vinod was running the pharmacy outlets with six branches in Coimbatore, Trichy and Thoothukudi districts.
His sister was running fancy stores at Ganapathy and Ganapathy Maa Nagar while Annadurai had a grocery store at Ganapathy Maa Nagar. “They claimed to have made deals to supply medicines and goods to a few big banner public sector firms like Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) and Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC),” he said.
The inspector added that they also created forged documents and records to support their claims and asked their friends and others to invest Rs. 1 lakh in their pharma firm here. They also allegedly promised monthly interest of Rs. 10,000 and to also return the principal at the end of the eleventh month.
They started attracting investments in this method in July 2014 till the first few months of this year. The police quoted investors as saying that Vinod’s family were initially giving them the interest promptly but then stopped it suddenly. Learning that they were cheated the investors approached the EOW. Based on a complaint lodged by one of the investors by name Christopher, a case was registered on Vinod, his father, sister, and wife.
were also booked under section 5 (cheating investors by promising high rate of interest) of the Tamil Nadu Protection of Interest of Depositors (TNPID) Act.
Stating that a luxury car and important documents, fraudulently prepared letter heads and seals were seized from the accused, the police have also asked persons cheated by the accused to lodge complaints with them.
