Kaushik Banerjee, originally from Kolkata, was an employee of a company in Hyderabad where he had posed himself as an expert share market trader. He had promised a 10%-per-month return to those who invested through him, supposedly in the share market. Paying the 10% dividends to his colleagues for the initial few months gained him immense trust of other colleagues and soon people started rushing to invest with Kaushik. According to CCS Hyderabad, today, an estimate total amount of money collect by Kaushik sums up to Rs. 40 crores or even more.
--- Image - Rekha & Kaushi Banerjee
The main characteristic of a Ponzi scheme is where a company or a person takes in money and provides high returns, without actually conducting any kind of business from the investments taken in. Similarly, it is known today that Kaushik was never into any kind of share market trading and simply returned a monthly 10% back to the investor against the total deposit taken from him/her. This high return of 10% per month created a cascading effect through word of mouth which led to more and more people investing with Kaushik. Kaushik eventually left his job and became a full-time deposit-taker, and thus this story of a new Ponzi scam born.
As we know, Ponzi scams have short lives and this one too subsequently burst out about five months ago when Kaushik absconded with all the money collected from over a thousand people. A few of the investors (not named herein) approached Shahbaz Ahmed Khan (who played a substantial role in exposing other major scams such as Heera Gold, IMA) and informed him of what had happened. Shahbaz Ahmed Khan and his team members along with one of the investors managed to file an FIR under IPC 420 & IT Act after which Officer Srinivasa Rao acted and nabbed Kaushik and his accomplice Rekha from Pune.
Today, more than four FIRs have been filed in various police stations in Hyderabad, and CCS Hyderabad is working on registering TDPFE/BUDS to the case. Investors have visited CCS and a few of them have confronted Kaushik Banerjee and Rekha and have realized the breach of trust done by them. Investors demand that all bank accounts of the immediate relatives of both Kaushik and Rekha and others involved in the scam, be scrutinized for the purpose of maximum recovery.
Shahbaz Ahmed Khan’s constant fight against such economic fraudsters have created a lot of threat unknown sources yet he continues to raise his voice against them. “Whether you like me, my voice, my ways, or whether you don’t.. it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we need to speak up against injustice and force our government to create more stringent laws to eliminate the possibility of any such economical scams in future. Until then, the responsibilities lie in the hands of the Whistleblowers,” he said.
We salute the tireless efforts of Mr. Shahbaz Ahmed Khan in exposing such scams and making sure the guilty get prosecuted, and we urge more people to speak up against injustice.. that’s a minimum we must do.
--- By Victims of Heera Gold, IMA, Providence Capital.
