Runaway proprietor held from Mumbai for duping investors

City police today arrested a man from Vikhroli in suburban Mumbai for allegedly duping scores of investors in Nashik and other cities across Maharashtra by promising them hefty returns on their deposits, a senior official said.
According to the police, the fraud allegedly committed by Vinay Phadnis runs into Rs 300 crore and that 2000 out of nearly 8000 investors duped by him hailed from Nashik alone.
"Phadnis had floated an investment cum infrastructure company in Nashik in 2013," DCP (Crime) Dattatreya Karale stated in a release issued here today.
"He attracted a large number of investors by promising them hefty rate of interest on their deposits. He locked his office in September 2016 and has been absconding since then," it stated.

Prima facie, Phadnis has cheated more than 8,000 investors from various cities in the state, the police said.
Phadnis was booked under various sections of IPC and under the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (in financial establishments) Act, 1999 on the complaint lodged against him at Mumbai Naka police station here on September 30 last year by one Sudhir Hinge (65), who claimed that he was cheated of over Rs 10 crore, the police said.

Complaints were also lodged by many investors at the police station against Phadnis.
Phadnis was today produced in a court here, which remanded him in police custody for ten days, the release said.

The case is now handed over to the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) for further investigation, the DCP added.