Woman duped of Rs 7 lakh in ponzi scheme petitions collector

COIMBATORE: A 30-year-woman from

Kuniyamuthur

has petitioned the district collector against her neighbour, who duped her of Rs 7 lakh in the name of a gold investment scheme, and city crime branch officials, who have allegedly been dragging the case and threatening her to withdraw the complaint.

In her petition, Sumaya Syed said the accused had duped as many as 11 people from the region of a total of Rs 50 lakh. “The neighbour in question lured us into the scheme by promising to return double the investment amount within 51 days for deposits above Rs 1 lakh,” she said.

Despite repeated complaints, she said, the police were yet to take any action.

In July last, one of her neighbours allegedly persuaded Sumaya to deposit money in a

ponzi scheme

and promised 8% of profit share. She subsequently invested Rs 7 lakh in the 51-day scheme.

After collecting the money from the depositors, her neighbour, however, went into hiding. The victims subsequently lodged a police compliant in August last.

“It’s been more than eight months since we lodged a complaint. As a huge amount was involved, the case was transferred to the city crime branch. Every time we visited crime branch officials, they took some amount from us. We have paid them more than Rs 1.5 lakh so far. The officials are also threatening us to withdraw the complaint,” Sumaya said and urged the district collector to take immediate action against the errant officials and also necessary steps to recover their money.

Refuting the allegations, the deputy commissioner of police (crime), P

Perumal

, said a few women had invested money in an online trading and lost their money. “They haven’t paid any money to police officials,” he said.

As soon as we received the complaint, Perumal said, we registered a first information report (FIR) and launched a probe. “We found involvement of a few persons and arrested three accused, while four suspects managed to obtain anticipatory bails. Further investigation is on to recover the investors’ money,” he said.


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