Greed is the main ingredient for getting duped – By Nisser Dias

For last couple of months one section of the public are gunning for the police for shoddy investigations or rather let’s say for not taking interest in investigating duping of people by Nilesh Raikar of the Kamakshi Forex Pvt. Ltd. Now this section of public call themselves ‘investors’. Yes they have invested their hard-earned money where it should not have been. Nowhere does the said hoarding say that Kamakshi is an investment company.

So who is to be blamed for unauthorised investment. It is the so called investors themselves for their greed to double or triple their money in quick time. These individuals did not report to the police that the accused was illegally accepting their money in lakhs of rupees. They did not complain while accepting huge interests on monthly basis.

But now since they have realised that have been duped, is the government to be blamed? Is it right to point fingers at the police and lastly is it right  to pressurize advocates not to take the brief of the proprietor or accused?

This is not the first time since people have been duped. It has been going on for decades and still people have not changed and in future too greedy people will be swindled in a similar fashion.

The main ingredient for falling prey to these con-men is greed. Infact these individuals thrive of the people’s greed to make quick buck. With their glib tongue they attract gullible individuals into their lair. After a person is trapped, dividends/interests are paid regularly for few months to couple of years. This is to win over the trust of ‘investors’, and bring more investors and then deceive them.

Two decades back Reserve Bank of India permitted NBFCs (Non Banking Finance Company). These companies could accept deposits as FDs, provide loans but were not allowed to have Saving or Current accounts. They could make loans available at higher interest rate compared to banks at the same they gave higher interest rates for deposits. All these companies ran aground with depositors losing their money and those who had availed loans benefitted.

The reason for downfall of the NBFCs is that it was not profitable to give higher percentage of interests than the banks to the depositors. Secondly those individuals whose loan applications were rejected by the regular banks availed loans from NBFCs because of the relaxed norms. Hence when loans started going bad NBFCs started defaulting on the payments to the depositors. The investors were the losers.

The promoters of the company were arrested, the managers thrown behind bars and within 14 days they were released on bail.

In some NBFCs cases, the head of the family with some banking background was the promoter and his wife, brothers and sisters were directors. In a sort it was family business and in some instances the companies were floated to cheat ‘get-rich-quick’ individuals.

Couple of months back we have had Kamakshi Forex going into red. The story is similar. Greed made individuals invest with this company. It is plain and simple ‘Forex’ simply means ‘Foreign Exchange’. Nowhere on the hoarding it is said investment company.

Along with Kamakshi Forex another company by name Evolve Consultancy has also duped lot of people and the proprietor is also on the run.

Couple of years back it was Jayant Nalwade who duped not only lay people but also government servants like DySPs, deputy collectors, mamladars, police inspectors, PWD engineers.

Earlier to Nalwade, there was Mahesh Mehta who conned hundreds of individuals of their hard-earned money.

Can we forget con-men posing themselves as overseas recruiters, collect money from naïve job-seekers and disappear?

The modus operandi of these con-men is based on a simple human weakness that is greed. Greed and more greed to accumulate more and more money at a rapid pace. These con-men cultivate the greed in individuals but in the end harvest rich benefits for themselves.