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ED arrests one in Rs 2,200 crore PMLA case

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 The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday said that it has arrested Pavitra Pradip Walvekar, the promoter director cum CEO of Kudos Finance and Investment Private Limited, an NBFC company in connection with a prevention of money laundering case.

His arrest was made at Hyderabad by a team of ED officials. The probe agency produced him before a special court and said that he wasn’t needed for further interrogation. After this the court remanded Pavitra to 15 days judicial custody.

The ED has been conducting money laundering investigation against a number of Indian NBFC companies which are in the business of instant personal loans via mobile apps.

The ED has found that various fintech companies backed by Chinese funds have made agreements with these NBFC companies for providing instant personal micro loans of term ranging from 7 days to 14 days.

Ms Kudos NBFC ‘purportedly’ engages FinTech (digital lending partners) Companies as a Service Provider to assist in identifying prospective customers, verifying their eligibility, collection of information/documents, conducting due diligence, collecting pre-disbursement documents, arranging execution of the loan agreement, assisting with collections and recovery of principal and interest payments and attending service requests/product related queries for the retail loans offered by the Company.

Although it is projected that the NBFC is engaging Fintech companies for the above activities, but in reality they are allowing the Fintech companies to misuse the valuable NBFC license of Kudos.

“Ms Kudos has a paltry Net Owned Fund (NOF), but it is taking huge amount as ‘security deposits’ and then opening separate Merchant ID (MID) with payment gateways for each fintech app and then depositing this security in the MID of the respective fintech app,” said an ED official.

Kudos company has no mobile app of its own. It is not involved in the lending business at all. It has miniscule staff and is blindly allowing fintech companies to operate at the back of MOU between self (NBFC) and Fintech Mobile app companies. Thus, the entire lending operation is being done by the fintech app from its own funds. Kudos is only lending its license and the fintech apps are the ones acting like the real NBFCs and doing end to end micro lending and reaping majority of the benefits. In return Kudos is taking a commission without doing any due diligence or hard work.

“Entire decisions regarding fixation of interest rate, processing fee were taken by fintech companies and these companies were operating on the basis of instructions from Chinese beneficial owners. They capture customers’ data by getting access to their mobile contacts, media. In order to obtain more profits and to maintain high recovery rate, their call centres resorted to harsh recovery measures by using abusive language to entire phone list and contacts and misuse of social media privileges. Unable to bear the level of harassment, certain people have committed suicides,” said an ED official.

The official said that at the time of crediting the loan amount, the apps would deduct 15-25 per cent of the amount as processing fee and on the remaining amount they were charging very high interest rate.

“Fund trail investigation done by ED revealed that despite having NOF of only Rs 10 crore, Kudos circulated loans over Rs 2,200 crore in its name and it was entirely funded by 39 fintech companies who are now not responding to summons and have shutdown their operations and are absconding,” said the ED official.

In the entire business, fintech companies have gained a total profit of around Rs 544 crore and Kudos has gained a profit of around Rs 24 crore.

This entire arrangement is in complete violation of the RBI guidelines on NBFCs and thus, the entire profit of Rs 568 crore is nothing but proceeds of crime.

The source of funds with the fintech companies is also suspect and is being investigated.

Despite repeated opportunities, Pavitra Pradip Walvekar was not revealing the real identity and beneficial owners of the 39 apps with whom they were in business for more than a year.

The ED has alleged that instead of cooperating with the investigation, he had been making active attempts to obstruct the free and fair investigation.

Crime

Mumbai: Man Stabbed To Death After He Intervenes To Settle Dispute In Sion Koliwada; Antop Hill Police Arrest 5

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Mumbai: Man Stabbed To Death After He Intervenes To Settle Dispute In Sion Koliwada; Antop Hill Police Arrest 5

Mumbai: A 22-year-old was murdered in the early hours of Friday in Mumbai’s Sion Koliwada area after an argument broke out over noise pollution. The Antop Hill police have registered an FIR in the case and so far five people have been arrested and further investigation is underway.

The incident took place around 12:30 am in Kokri Agar In Jai Maharashtra Nagar, Antop Hill. Vivek Gupta (22) was attacked with a knife and he succumbed to his injuries. As initial information available, a group of people were making noise causing disturbance on the street which lead to an argument broke out. Gupta had gone to resolve the dispute between the accused, however, angered over his interference, Gupta was attacked.

What started as a small fight soon escalated and Gupta was attacked with a knife. He was immediately taken to Sion Hospital, however, he succumbed to his injuries. He was pronounced dead at 3:30 am. The senior police officers of Mumbai Police Zone 4 were present at the hospital. The cops have so far arrested five suspects connected to this incident, and further investigation is underway.

The arrested accused are: Karthik R Mohan Devendra, Karthik Kumar Devendra, Vicky Muttu Devendra, Miniappan Ravi Devendra and the wife of Karthik R Mogan, the police informed. The case is registered under the relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita.

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Crime

Mumbai: 6 Booked For Defrauding Stock Trader Of ₹1.5 Cr In Bitcoin Investment Scam

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Mumbai: The Bandra police have registered an FIR against six persons for allegedly defrauding a stock trader of nearly Rs 1.50 crore in a Bitcoin investment scam. The suspects fled even before the case was filed, prompting a manhunt. They have been identified as Abur Sode, Dhanjibhai Rawaria, Jishan Shaikh, Indrajit Latif, Abdul Latif, and Ramkumar Dharmak, all from Mumbai and Navi Mumbai.

The complainant in the case, Yogesh More, 50, is a resident of Parel and operates a stock trading business in the Marwari area in Bandra West. He met the accused three years ago, during which they introduced themselves as representatives of a company called Friptex Finsol, claiming to offer Bitcoin as a virtual currency.

Trusting them, More transferred around Rs42 lakh in cash and Rs1.08 crore via cheque to various bank accounts associated with the company for Bitcoin purchases between November 2021 and October 2024. Despite these payments, he did not receive the promised Bitcoins, and after multiple inquiries, the accused continued to evade him. Over the last three years, neither the Bitcoins nor a refund was provided.

Complaint Lodged At Bandra Police Station

Suspecting fraud, he began investigating and discovered that Friptex Finsol was a bogus company, and the accused had orchestrated a scam. He then lodged a complaint with the Bandra police. Following an initial inquiry, the police registered a case against six persons under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), and 34 (common intention) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

A police officer said that the accused are from Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. “The preliminary inquiry has not revealed any past criminal history. We are searching for the accused,” the officer added.

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Crime

West Bengal: Youth Arrested For Rape Of Deaf & Mute Woman In South 24 Parganas’ Kultali

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Kolkata: A youth was arrested on the charges of raping a deaf and mute woman at a deserted building in Kultali in South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal.

Even as the main accused in the case has been arrested, the local people had been agitating claiming that a local Trinamool Congress panchayat chief Prahlad Nashkar allegedly pressurised family members of the victim to settle the matter against Rs 2,00,000.

However, Nashkar has denied the allegations, saying he was the first to reach the spot and inform the family members of the victim about the incident.

Complaint Filed

The victim’s family members filed a complaint on Wednesday evening. Thereafter, the police started an investigation and based on circumstantial evidence, the accused youth was arrested.

He will be presented at a district court in South 24 Parganas on Thursday only and the public prosecutor will seek his police custody, a district police official said.

Part Of Kultali & Jaynagar Turn Into Virtual Battlefields

In the first week of this month, part of Kultali and adjacent Jaynagar turned into virtual battlefields over violent protests by the local people over the rape and murder of a minor girl there.

At that point in time, the main allegation of the local people was against the police and the latter ignored the missing complaint by the parents of the victim. The local people also alleged that had the police been active in tracking the victim minor, the heinous crime could have been averted.

The protesters became violent and attacked the police station. A local police camp was ransacked and set on fire. The police had to resort to massive lathi-charge to dispel the mob then.

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