Guru Con, who cheated investors

Ulhas and Raksha Khaire, who cheated investors of about Rs 500 crore, left a trail of fraud and deception across the country, living it up and buying assets worth crores

A three-storey glass building with a garden balcony and a terrace restaurant, tucked inside a lane choking with showrooms for luxury cars, plush offices and posh banquet halls—Ulhas and his wife Raksha Khaire could not have chosen a better place to dupe people into believing that they were here to make people rich. It was the perfect place for the con couple to float their rogue company, Stock Guru India, in early 2011.

Employees working in adjoining buildings at Moti Nagar in West Delhi still remember the time when thousands would line up to invest their money in the company in the hope of getting big returns. A few months later, the queue gave way to protests by the same people demanding their money back. Earlier this year, men from the income tax department sealed the main gate and declared the couple absconding.

Ulhas, 33 and Raksha, 30, who lured at least 2.5 lakh people into investing their money in their company and fled with around Rs 500 crore, were arrested from Ratnagiri in Maharashtra last week and brought to Delhi. While Ulhas is in police custody, Raksha was sent to Tihar jail on Friday.

Before their arrest, the couple had a successful run for many years. They would promise investors an interest of 20 per cent, pay them in the initial few months and then flee with their money. Investigating officials say Ulhas, who went by the name of Lokeshwar Dev in Delhi, pretended to be a stock market expert.

At their four-bedroom flat in Ircon Apartments in Delhi's Dwarka Sector 18 A, many of the residents are still not certain if the couple whose photographs are being splashed in newspapers are the ones who had lived next door. The couple had bought Flat No. D 209 in the upmarket housing society. Manesh Krishna H, who lives in an adjoining flat, says, "I never saw them but I would see tall muscular men guarding their vehicles in the parking lot."

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