Chennai businessman cheats people of Rs 100 crore, held

CHENNAI: The economics offences wing CID on Tuesday arrested Sivan Narendran, chairman of Rafoll Retails (OPC) Pvt. Ltd, for cheating more than 1,000 people of Rs 100 crore through deposit schemes offering attractive returns. A court later sent him to jail.
Police had in July summoned Narendran after his company took out a newspaper advertisement with deposit schemes — one offering handsome returns and six eggs a week forRs700 a year, another giving good returns and 12 eggs a week for Rs 1,400 a year and the third offering even better returns and 24 eggs a week for an investment ofRs2,800 a year.He was allowed to go after he gave a statement and promised to return the cash to 280 depositors.
Later, more than 100 people filed separate complaints with police against the Rafoll group for failing to give the promised returns. The company had collected deposits ranging from Rs36,000 toRs1lakh and promised to give Rs 10,000 and Rs 36,000 every month for a year.
The company wrote to the depositors, saying the schemes had been temporarily stalled and kept fobbing them off when asked to return the money. In a release, the EOW CID cautioned the public against falling prey to such schemes.