A 47-year-old woman was arrested by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police from south Goa for allegedly duping people by inducing them to invest in her app-based taxi aggregator company on the pretext of high returns.
Accoding to Dr O P Mishra, the Joint Commissioner of Police, EOW, one Dharmender, along with other victims, alleged against a company called SMP Impex Pvt Ltd (Hello Taxi) and its office bearers Saroj Mahapatra, Rajesh Mahto, Sunder Bhati, Harish Bhati and the woman director for cheating by inducing them to invest in their company Hello Taxi and promised to pay higher rate of interest up to 200 per cent on monthly basis. “But they neither paid the interest nor returned the money. There were more than 900 investors so far and their amount involved is around Rs 250 crore. During investigation, it was found that the directors of the company actively induced the victims to part with their money on the pretext of high returns by investing into Hello Taxi company,” said the Joint CP.
“The company accepted bookings from the investors without taking approval from the concerned authorities like RBI or SEBI. They initially paid returns to the investors to win their confidence, but later stopped the payments after collecting huge amount and escaped,” he said.
“The locations of the company also changed frequently to trap new victims. Initially, the company started its operation from Ghaziabad and after couple of months, they shifted to Patparganj Industrial Area and Sector-16, Rohini,” said the joint CP. “The bank statements of the company were scrutinized and Rs 3,27,48,495 was frozen. Sixty new cars worth Rs 3.5 crore purchased from cheated amount were seized from Noida. Earlier the co-accused Rajesh Mahto was arrested on August 23. Several teams were constituted to trace and nab the accused persons. On the basis of secret information, police apprehended the woman from south Goa,” said the Joint CP.
“One Volvo XC-40, purchased from the cheated amount, has also been recovered from her possession,” he added.