IE 24/9/09

CHENNAI: Financial fraudsters seem to be ruling the roost if the growing number of cheated citizens knocking on the City Police Commissioner door for justice is anything to go by.

On September 17, the police had a hard time pacifying investors with City Limouzines, when they hit the streets after losing all hope of getting their hard-earned money back. On September 22, around 15 retired employees of government and private sector companies trooped into city police chief T Rajendran’s office alleging that they had been duped of lakhs of rupees by Country Vacations of Country Club (I) Ltd, a resort company on Smith Road with branches all over India. They had been promised residential plots, land and local and foreign trips. But that was over a year ago. To date, the company has not made any efforts to fulfil any of its promises.

M Jayadev, a businessman and resident of Saidapet, claimed that there were at least 5,000 investors in the city who stood to lose their money. His father had invested Rs 2.2 lakh in the company.

“It all started with a phone call from the company,” he said. “They told us that we were a privileged lot to be chosen in a lucky draw,” Jayadev told Express. At a meeting later, they were given freebies and promised 1,500 sq ft land and a trip to Venice if they enrolled as members. The promised trip to ‘Gondola Land’ took an unsavoury turn and has now ended at the CoP’s office. Their hope now rests on the police chief, who has promised to set up a special team to look into their complaints against the company. On Wednesday, it was the turn of another group of investors to make a visit to the CoP office to submit a petition against another company, Sri Sai Capitals, an online trading firm at T Nagar, alleging that cheques issued by the company for the promised weekly returns in the form of profit sharing had started bouncing. They now sensed a grave danger to their hard-earned money.

N S Suryanarayanan, who invested Rs1 lakh in the firm, could consider himself lucky, as there are some who put around Rs 30 lakh and Rs 20 lakh into what now seems a bottomless abyss. In all cases, the investors seem to have been taken by the glib talk by representatives of the companies or the owner himself.