Three promoters of Agri Gold Group arrested in Rs 6,830-crore ponzi scam

NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday said it has arrested three promoters of the Agri Gold Group of Companies in a Ponzi Scheme Fraud Case worth Rs 6,380 crore.

Those arrested have been identified as Avva Venkata Rama Rao, Avva Venkata Seshu Narayana Rao, Avva Hema Sundara Vara Prasad, who are the main accused under the sections of the prevention of money laundering act (PMLA).

The accused were produced before the ED PMLA Court, Hyderabad, which granted them 14-day judicial custody. The ED had filed a case on the basis of multiple FIRs lodged in the Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka.

The scam was perpetrated by Avva Venkata Rama Rao through Agri Gold Group of Companies. Avva Venkata Rama Rao had earlier worked in the Golden Forest CIS Fraud scheme.

The ED claimed that having learnt the tricks of the trade in that scheme, he hatched a well planned conspiracy and along with his seven brothers and other associates set up more than 150 companies and started collecting deposits from general public with a promise of providing developed plots/farm lands or withdrawal at a high rate of return on maturity/pre-term. It said that thousands of commission agents were engaged to lure people with various schemes for hefty commission and managed to collect Rs 6,380 crore from 32,02,628 such investors.

In the end, the gullible investors neither got plots nor could recover their deposits. The group collected the deposits illegally from across the country.

According to ED officials, the company duped lakhs of investors from Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Andaman and Nicobar islands.

The ED claimed that the modus operandi involved encouraging the gullible investors to pay the desired deposits either directly or through the agents under the pretext of real estate deal.

"These companies did not mention either the actual market value of the land or its location or its boundaries or survey numbers or the permissions required to be obtained for the layouts from the concerned authorities. "They tried to color it as a real estate business, but in reality it was an unregulated unlicensed collective investment scheme," it said.

The ED further stated that the Agri Gold Group of Companies did not obtain permission from RBI to collect such deposits.

Even SEBI has reported that the business of the Agri Gold Farm Estates India Private Limited was nothing but a Collective Investment Scheme and ordered the company to stop taking further deposits and return the money to the depositors. (IANS)

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