Bengaluru: The 4th ACMM court on Wednesday remanded five accused in the Vikram Investment Company scam to three-day police custody till March 16.
Reportedly, over 800 people who had invested with the company, have been cheated. Over 250 complaints have been registered at the Banashankari police station. Of them, over 50 are from the city.
Initially, the scam was suspected to be around Rs 300 crore, but the police have confirmed now that it is over Rs 500 crore. It is likely to be probed by the CID after March 16.
The Banashankari police produced the five accused before the 4th Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s court on Wednesday and sought the extension of custody. The scam surfaced after P.R. Balaji, a businessman who owns Balaji Agarbathi Company, filed a complaint with the Banashankari police that Vikram Investment had cheated him of Rs 11 crore.
Following the complaint, the police arrested the five accused, including Raghvendra Srinath, the main accused and MD of Vikram Investment, and former sports journalist Sutram Suresh, Nagaraju, Narasimhamurthy and Prahalad, who were working as wealth managers and LIC agents.
The police suspect it to be a pre-planned scam. They froze 12 bank accounts of Raghevendra, but found only Rs 5,000 in each of them. His wife, Sunitha, who is one of the directors of the company, is still missing and the police suspect that over 40 agents were involved in the scam. The police are trying to trace Sunitha and others.
Investigations revealed that Raghvendra and Sunitha were living in a rented house and had transferred all the money to benami accounts. Raghvendra frequently visited Malasiya and is suspected to have invested large amounts to purchase properties and shares abroad.
Sutram Suresh reportedly roped in over 700 people, including top sports personalities. Raghvendra had reportedly directed all the LIC agents who were working with their company to convince their clients to invest in their schemes.
