What is the Selva Nadar Ashtavinayak scam that drove a Pune man to suicide?
An investment scam has rocked the city of Pune and has even resulted in a victim's tragic suicide. Selva Kumar Nadar, CEO of Ashtavinayak Group has defrauded over 265 people, mostly IT professionals, to the tune of nearly Rs 300 crore. And now he's absconding.
Request you all to help find this fraud person named Selva Kumar Nadar from Pune, wherever you see him with his wife and son.
— Prashant Khandale (@Prashan11586758) March 22, 2023
Please inform the CP office of Pune or your nearest police station.
Arrests
- The Pune EOW (Economic Offences Wing) has arrested three individuals in connection to the scam.
- The accused have been identified as Prasad Shinde, finance manager at Ashtavinayak Investment Firm, and Ajay Khadse and Nitin Shinde, connectors with the DSA (Direct Selling Agent) for banks and NBFCs.
- Selva Kumar Nadar has not been found yet.
- The police are acting on a complaint filed by Sachin Purshottam Pawar working at a US-based multinational bank.
- Pawar said he has been duped of Rs 36.65 lakh.
The suicide
- One of the victims of the scam, 46-year-old Prabhat Ranjan, died by suicide on July 13 following financial stress.
- Ranjan, a resident of Ranchi, Jharkhand, had borrowed Rs 91 lakh from six different banks to invest in Nadar's investment scheme in June 2021.
- His monthly EMI was coming up to Rs 1.8 lakh. He also lost his job in December last year, before which he was making a little more than Rs 1 lakh per month.
- Ranjan's brother Rajiv also alleged in a police complaint that their cousin brother Sachin Kumar also duped the deceased of Rs 15 lakh from 2021-2023.
- Moreover, Ranjan was also reportedly duped by a friend in a car deal, who paid only Rs 3 lakh instead of Rs 7.5 lakh for his Mercedes-Benz as promised.
Story:
— Nishant Batra CWM® 🇮🇳 (@stepbystep888) July 17, 2023
- Prabhat Ranjan & Neha Gupta, husband and wife working in IT Sector in Pune
- they have two 10 year old twin daughters
- Ranjan borrowed Rs 88 lakh from six banks and invested it in Selva Nadar’s Ashtavinayak Investment in June 2021.
- Ashtavinayak Investment obtained…
Selva Kumar Nadar's modus operandi
- According to reports, Nadar targeted high-income individuals, mostly working in the IT sector, using telemarketing calls.
- One of the arrested, Prasad Shinde, has been accused of providing data of the employees working in various IT companies.
- Nadar then sold "loan investment schemes" to his targets where he took out loans in the name of the "investors" or "clients" from various banks and NBFCs to be invested in Ashtavinayak Investment Firm.
- He promised the investors good returns and also said that the investment firm will pay the EMIs.
- Nadar's company allegedly paid the EMIs for a few months, but then, last year, they stopped and the clients were then called up to pay the remaining EMIs.
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- Pawar, who filed the complaint, said that Nadar gave him a few cheques when he confronted him, but they were dishonoured. Nadar then went incommunicado.
- Selva Kumar Nadar ran several other firms to his name from Ashtavinayak Academy to even a jewellery store. He had offices in posh locations too to boost his image and credibility.
- The Ashtavinayak Investment firm even had an office at Nucleus Mall in Pune. Nadar now also owes Rs 10 lakh in rent.
- A preliminary probe also reveals that officials of 27 banks bypassed RBI rules to provide loans to the clients and investors of Ashtavinayak Investment firm.
The scam reportedly occurred between August 2020 and November 2022. Nadar closed his office last month and has been on the run ever since. Moreover, according to new reports, "investors" and Nadar were both trying to recruit more investors into their scam till the week before the latter absconded.
Selva Kumar Nadar was born in Tamil Nadu and lives in Pune. He lived with his wife and son till he went absconding. He also has a sister who lives in Canada with their mother.