Couple of many faces cheated 2.5 lakh people of Rs 500 cr, say cops

Barely in their thirties, this couple from Nagpur had many faces, allegedly conned at least 2.5 lakh people of nearly Rs 500 crore, owned 94 bank accounts, had a villa in Goa and possessed several luxury sedans — till, on Saturday, their dream run ended.

Delhi Police Economic Offences Wing officers said 33-year-old Ulhas Prabhakar Khaire and 30-year-old Raksha were planning another fraud in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, when they were arrested.

The couple pulled off their biggest fraud last year in Delhi when they lured people to invest in their company Stock Guru India, offering a 20 per cent return on an investment of more than Rs 10,000, before fleeing with their money, police said.

"Till date, as many as 14,303 complaints have been received. Our investigation revealed there were around 2.5 lakh investors," said Sandeep Goel, Joint Commissioner of Police, Economic Offences Wing.

Police said they recovered 12 cars, including a Mercedes and a Land Cruiser, more than Rs 63 crore cash and documents of several properties they owned. Two passports on fake identities of Lokeshwar Dev and Priyanka Saraswat Dev were also reportedly seized.

"They had 94 accounts in 20 different banks across the country. We recovered papers of 12 properties, including eight flats in Dwarka, a villa in Goa and a flat each in Bhiwadi, Alwar and Moradabad," a police official said.

The two would take on different identities while shifting from one state to another, police said, including names like Liuke Siddharth in Maharashtra, Lokeshwar in Delhi and Ulhas in Bangalore. They would allegedly contact investors through pamplets, SMS and Facebook groups, and convince them to invest with their firm, later fleeing with all the money.

In 2011, hundreds of complainants had gathered outside the office of Stock Guru India in Moti Nagar, New Delhi, demanding their arrest.

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