The owner of Ashtavinayak Investment, Selva Kumar Nadar, a Maharashtra-based investment firm, has been accused of cheating approximately 200 people of over Rs 300 crore in a financial scam. The Economic Offences Wing of the Pune Police has registered a case against him.
Nadar’s investment firm allegedly took out loans in the names of investors and promised them high returns on their investments. To make the deal more attractive, the firm also offered to repay the loans on the investors’ behalf.
The alleged fraud occurred between August 2020 and November 2022. Nadar has absconded since shutting down his office abruptly in February 2023, leaving his investors in a state of shock.
Sachin Purushottam Pawar, a resident of Karmabhumi Nagar, Lohegaon, and 16 others who invested in the scheme filed a complaint against Nadar. Pawar invested Rs 36.65 lakh, and when the payments stopped in December 2022, he approached Nadar, who made excuses about the banking system.
When Pawar demanded his money back, Nadar issued him a cheque on January 15, 2023, which was dishonoured. Later, when Pawar and other investors tried to contact Nadar, they found out that the office of Ashtavinayak Investment had been shut down, and Nadar could not be reached.
The Pune Police have charged Nadar under sections 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 34 (act done in furtherance of a common intention) of the Indian Penal Code, and section 3 of Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (In Financial Establishments) Act, 1999. An investigation into the matter is currently underway.