Mumbai An ayurveda practitioner, three of his family members and two others have been booked for allegedly duping a Kandivali-based heart surgeon and his family to the tune of ₹4.32 crore.
The complainant, Dr Yogeshkumar Shukhla, 38, claimed that the ayurveda doctor told him to invest money in his own company, which was conducting research on ayurvedic medicine. He asked Shukla to take the company’s franchise and promised him 48% returns.
The police have booked Dr Sunil Singh, his brother Anil Singh, parents Mahendra and Shanti Singh and two of their employees.
Shukla, a resident of Kandivli (East), told the police that in March 2020, he came in contact with Dr Vishal Gupta, who has a nursing home Sai Shraddha in Kanjurmarg. They became friends and in October 2020, Gupta introduced Shukla to Sunil Singh, an ayurveda doctor, who doesn’t practise medicine but works with the production, sale and purchase of ayurvedic medicine via three companies. Over a year, Singh and Shukla became good friends.
“To gain trust, Singh once borrowed ₹15 lakh from Shukla and returned the entire amount to him within 15-days, as promised,” said a police officer.
Later, Singh and his family started insisting Shukla to invest in their company’s projects and promised 48% returns annually. Shukla was not interested in their offer as he had recently bought a flat but Singh and his family members refused to budge. They even offered him a share in the company’s profit and promised to make him a director with a monthly salary of ₹4.1lakh. Eventually, when Shukla learnt that his friend Gupta had also invested ₹1 crore with Singh’s family, Shukla decided to invest.
Between March-July 2021, Shukla, his family members, friends and relatives invested nearly ₹4.70 crore. Shukla returned around ₹38 lakhs to the complainant in December 2021 as interest on their investment.
In the meanwhile, Gupta had a financial dispute with Singh and Singh allegedly got Gupta arrested in a bogus rape case, claimed the complainant. “After this, Shukla got suspicious and asked Singh to return the money. Singh then started to ignore him and allegedly threatened to implicate him in a fake criminal case just like Gupta,” said an officer. Dr Shukla then lodged a complaint with the Samata Nagar police station on Sunday.
The police have booked Dr Singh, his family members and two employees under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code and Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors Act for cheating and criminal breach of trust and investment fraud. “We suspect that there could be more victims,” said an officer.