Pune: Dnyanradha co-op society fraud involves Rs 3,500 crore, say cops; 2 more office-bearers held

PUNE: Beed-based Dnyanradha Multi-State Co-op Society, already being probed for duping depositors of more than Rs 125 crore, is now embroiled in a much larger scam - involving over Rs 3,500 crore and 4.5 lakh depositors, police said.

Pimpri Chinchwad police on Friday night arrested two office-bearers of the society.

The police took the cooperative society's vice-chairman Yashwant Kulkarni (55) and director Vaibhav Kulkarni (25) into custody from near Phoenix Mall in Wakad following a tip-off on Friday. Suresh Kute, the chairman of the cooperative society, was arrested by the Beed police on June 8. He has been in custody since.

Also in June, in Jalna's Partur tehsil, where the credit cooperative society has been running one of its branches for the past few years, the management of the cooperative was booked. Several cases have since been registered against this bank's management across the Marathwada region.

Kute was taken to Jalna by the Sadar Bazaar police. At that time, Partur police inspector Machindra Survase confirmed that a case had been registered based on a complaint lodged by a pensioner, Bhagwanrao Khandagle.

Two co-op senior officials were in hiding for 4 months
Eight identified and some unidentified people had been booked for duping 145 depositors of Rs 125 crore.

According to the police, Kute, along with his spouse and key associates, had been named accused in over a dozen cases registered in Beed, Jalna and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.

On Friday, the Kulkarnis told the police that they had been in hiding for four months as they were wanted in 42 cases, said inspector Devendra Chavan from the anti-extortion cell of the Pimpri Chinchwad police.

The inspector said Yashwant and Vaibhav Kulkarni's custody was transferred to the Beed police on Saturday morning.

On Aug 12, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), in a statement, said while investigating a money laundering case linked with the society's fraud, it found that one of the suspects, Suresh Kute, and others had lured the investors to deposit money with the society by promising higher returns.

On June 8, Suresh Kute, the chairman of the cooperative society, was arrested in Pune on the charges of cheating. Beed police said there were claims that 6 lakh people had deposited money in different schemes floated by the accused scammers, who had assured returns at 13-18% interest.

Citing restrictions from the Reserve Bank of India, Kute had allegedly stopped giving returns on the FDs and expressed inability to return the principal amount of the investors. Kute often took to social media and assured the investors of returning their money at the earliest.

However, after the suspects faltered on multiple deadlines and promises, some investors reached out to the police and they got an FIR registered.

The number of FIRs soon started multiplying, but the accused continued to post on social mediaassuring the depositors.

Kute also heads the Tirumala Group with business interests ranging from real estate to banking. The income-tax department raided the offices belonging to the Kute Group in Oct 2023.