SCAMSTERS INC.

For years the UP police have done little to crackdown on the coal mafia operating in the state. The CBI says from local police to forest offcials and the RPF- everyone is hand-in-glove. TIMES NOW has now exposed how coal worth lakhs of rupees are being stolen each day from trains carrying the material.

In one of the biggest scams that has been going on for years, coal, worth lakhs is stolen each day from trains headed for thermal plants. The scamsters have been operating for years right under the noses of the UP administration.

The modus operandi is simple. No sooner do the goods trains filled with coal leave the mines, the mafia is tipped off. As the train makes its way through the naxal infested jungles, it is stopped by group of men. In a matter of minutes, the operation is on in full swing and the theft begins.

The stolen coal is then loaded on to tractors and secured in godowns by the mafia.

While the CBI crackdown has forced the govt to launch an investigation, the magnitude of the scam clearly suggests everyone, from the local police to forest officials to the railway protection force, is hand in glove with the powerful coal mafia.

Source: Times Now

Four persons, who collected nearly Rs 4 crore within a year by posting a website and later duped more than 15,000 members by collecting membership fee, were arrested on Monday.

The arrested created a website and offered its members incentives for clicking the advertisements posted in it. According to Cyberabad police, B Yadagiri, who owns the RJR India Online Adds Services Business at Quthbullapur, along with his friends hatched a plan to earn easy money by posting a website.

He took the help of his friend, S Shambulingam and D Veeresham, and created the website, rjraddsindia.com, with the help of a website designer , K Srinivas. The accused approached P N Sudhakar, director of Castling IT Solutions Private Limited at Manikonda, and hosted the website through the domain of his company.

After launching the website, the accused issued paper advertisements offering membership to the general public of the website by paying Rs 2,500 as fees.

“They assured the members that they would earn Rs 2,500 to Rs 5,000 per month by clicking on the advertisements posted on the website through the IDs given to them,” Cyberabad Police Commissioner S Prabhakar Reddy said.

They collected Rs 3,99,66,683 from 15,972 persons between November 2008 to May 2009.
In June 2009, the accused shut down their business and were absconding since then.

Police on arrested Yadagiri, Shambulingam, Venkatesham and Srinivas and recovered Rs 47 lakh cash and 1.4 kilo gold from them.

Four bank accounts were also frozen, however, the accused did not maintain a huge balance in the banks. The only deposited Rs 1.21 lakh in these accounts. Another accused Rajani, the receptionist of the company, is absconding.

Source: Express Buzz

It has come to light, that the state transport department is entangled in a controversial contract involving a fraud amounting to over Rs 400 crore on the issue of giving contract for providing uniform high security registration plates to the vehicles in the state, to a private company.

The union government has taken a decision to provide a uniform, secured, number plates to the vehicles all over the country, for security reasons. This has been brought into effect to avoid theft of vehicles, misuse of stolen vehicles by terrorists, naxals etc., and to be able to easily detect the modifications made if any. The state government accordingly, has initiated steps to fall in line with other states in this regard.

Mumbai-based Shivnit Utsch India Pvt Ltd has bagged the contract for providing the high security number plates for the vehicles in the state for a 15-year period. The rates quoted by the company for the number plates are Rs 550 for two-wheelers, Rs 650 for three-wheelers and Rs 1,200 for four-wheelers. It is mandatory for the citizens to pay the prescribed rates and get new high security number plates to their vehicles.

West Bengal, the first state to adopt the new system, has fixed Rs 282 for two -wheelers, Rs 298 for three-wheelers and Rs 441 for four-wheelers. The fact that the cost in Karnataka is three-fold as compared to the ones fixed by West Bengal, has raised several eye-brows. There is something fishy in this contract, people believe.

The state has about 78.51 lac registered vehicles and the differential burden on the people works to around Rs 400 crore. It is said, the company has violated several conditions, one of which, is that it should have had the experience of having supplied number plates to at least four countries. It is said, the company, in order to bag the contract, falsely declared that it had supplied number plates to four countries.

In Rajasthan, the contract for number plates had been given to this company, but after allegations were made about the wrong information furnished by it, the agreement has been put on hold. The government there is contemplating the issue of placing the company on black list.

Source: Daiji World

Nepal Police today claimed to have busted a multi-crore international gems scam by arresting 26 people, including a dozen Indians involved in cheating foreign tourists for decades by trapping them to pay money through their credit cards.

A dozen Indian nationals including Nuri Khan from Agra, Pappu Singh from Madhya Pradesh, Santosh Tiwari from Bhopal, Rajiv Narayan from Jaypur and Anil Baliya from Rajasthan were arrested from the gems scam that has from Thailand to India and finally to Nepal, the police said.

There were at least seven groups involved in the gems scam in which foreign tourists are cheated in the name of trading gems and they end up without delivering any goods but their credit cards were cashed in a dramatic way, said Superintendent of Police Nawaraj Silwal.

They will even produce fake custom officers, fake courier documents and make fake acts of going through all the legal processes to deliver the gems to the homes of the tourists. They even pack the gems in their presence through the courier but after the tourist is out the agents go to the courier and get back the packet.

The tourists thought that they have purchased gems and paid the money through their credit cards, but in fact, all the documents including the courier papers turn out to be fake and they will get nothing in return for their money.

Source: TOI

More skeletons are tumbling out of Nagpur University’s cupboard in connection with the bachelor of physical education (BPEd) degree scam.

On Monday, another group of aggrieved students, duped by accused Rajendra Gore, Animesh Mondal and Babulal Dhotre, met pro-VC GS Parasher with their complaint. Gore, the kingpin of the racket, is the in-charge principal of one of the colleges where these students had enrolled, Mondal is a former student of the college and Dhotre is a lecturer with Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Sharirik Shikshan Mahavidyalaya, Katol. It was initially believed that the students belonged to a particular state only, but now it has surfaced that it was a planned multi-state operation.

The distressed students, who exposed the scam, told TOI about Gore and his gang’s modus operandi. They said that Mondal used to lure his friends and relatives by claiming to arrange admissions to the BPEd course in Nagpur University. He had even floated advertisements in newspapers in Kolkata offering BPEd degree to students.

Source: TOI

Claiming to have documents, JDSLP leader H D Revanna said relatives and supporters of a minister have encroached upon 120 acres of land in Hoskote. "The total value is more than Rs 100 crore,'' he said. Without naming the minister, Revanna demanded action against the accused and recovery of the land. Though, ministers S Suresh Kumar and B N Bachhe Gowda felt the issue cannot be discussed as the matter is pending before court, Speaker Jagadish Shettar permitted the opposition to debate.

G S Kannur, legal expert and counsel for Karnataka State Forest Development Corporation (KFDCL), said the land in question is at Benniganahalli Tennur village. It was leased to KFDCL by the forest department. The corporation moved the local Hoskote court after the encroachment and obtained temporary injunction. But that was challenged in a Bangalore court and the matter is pending.

Source: TOI

They posed as representatives of gas agencies engaged in door-to-door maintenance services and mostly targeted housewives when they are
alone at home during the day, with the husbands at work and children in school or colleges. On Wednesday, Sakkardara police nabbed two such women, aged between 25 and 30, for tricking victims and decamping with valuables from many residences.

Police said Anita Josef and Aarti Wazare befriended each other and decided to team up to dupe housewives. In March, 45-year-old Sheila Lonkar of Ashwirwad Nagar was allegedly tricked by Josef and Wazare into believing that they were representatives of a gas company. Police said they spoke confidently and flashed an identity card too before pulling off the trick. Lonkar, who was about to enter the bathroom, had kept her jewellery on a shelf in the kitchen. The two scamsters gained entry into the kitchen claiming to be experts in repairing gas pipes.

"They distracted the victim (Lonkar) by requesting her to bring them a scissor. The duo pocketed the jewellery kept on the kitchen shelf when she walked out of the kitchen to bring the scissor," said senior inspector P T Ingle, in-charge of Sakkardara police station. "Before the woman could return, the duo decamped on their two-wheeler," said Ingle, who stressed that housewives should not entertain strangers, even women, at their residences when alone. "Lonkar noticed the theft after she returned from the bath. The duo may not have even touched the gas pipe that they promised to repair or replace," said Ingle, who claimed that the duo would even keep a tool kit with them to make their appearance authentic.

The duo was caught after head constable Sukdeve Madavi and his squad comprising constables Sandeep Gawli, Pankaj Borate and Deepak Rithe, working under sub-inspector Bansode, came across a record of Rana Pratap Nagar police that featured the names of these two. The culprits had been slapped with preventive action at the police station. "Fortunately, one of the constables of R P Nagar also had their photos clicked and stored in his mobile phone. We transferred the images onto our handsets and took them to Lonkar, who identified them. We worked on the information and nabbed Josef after zeroing down on her address at Ajni railway quarter. She and her accomplices had furnished a wrong address to the police at R P Nagar police station," said a policeman.

"We later picked up Wazare too. They both confessed to the crime," he said. It was a receipt from a jeweller's shop, found in a search at Josef's house, that nailed their lies. Police had been able to find the shop where Josef and Wazare had mortgaged the jewellery for Rs 1,800. The duo confessed that the I-card was made with the help of a friend.

Source: TOI

A CoD enquiry will be held into the Rs 254-crore garbage contract scam in BBMP, the government announced in the Legislative Council on Thursday. It also said that the BBMP commissioner will hold a departmental inquiry and take steps for the recovery of the money from officials who have been named in the report submitted by Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force.

Opposition leader V S Ugrappa accused the government of shielding the officials involved in the scam.A furious Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa thundered that the contractors against whom the Opposition wanted the government to act against were “protected” by their political masters during the years when they were looting the BBMP and the public.

The ruling benches erupted noting that the irregularities took place not in their time but during the tenure of the previous governments — over the last seven years.

Bangalore city incharge Minister R Ashok joined in, saying that bringing in outsiders as contractors for garbage clearance in the city was the handiwork of the Congress government of the early 1990s.

Trying to reason out the consequences of blacklisting the contractors, as demanded by the Opposition, the CM asked them to mull over what would happen if garbage collection in Bangalore was disrupted for a three-day stretch.

“You (Opposition) cannot tell the government what to do,” the CM said.

ource: Express Buzz

The government announced on Thursday that a House committee will probe the alleged scam concerning the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon) and Akshaya Patra Foundation (APF), Bangalore.

"The committee will examine all charges levelled by opposition leaders against Iskcon, including the one of depicting the nation in poor light in the US to collect donations in the name of the mid-day meal scheme," law minister S Suresh Kumar told the assembly while replying to Congress leader D K Shiva Kumar's charges.

The probe report will be placed before the House, which will make final recommendations on any corrupt practices, if proved, Kumar added. However, the government declined to heed the demand of the opposition to stop grants for the mid-day meal scheme run by APF.

Primary and secondary education minister Vishweshwara Hegde Kageri said they will continue with the Akshaya Patra scheme, going by the recent report to the department that government (both Centre and state) funds amounting to Rs 379 crore per annum are being effectively used. "Of the 11 lakh children across the country, APF is feeding 3.67 lakh children in the state. Government money is being utilized effectively by this foundation here,'' he said. The government has also identified 111 NGOs to feed 70 lakh children in the state, for which Rs 379 crore is being spent annually, he added.

Seeking to move an adjournment motion earlier, Shiva Kumar alleged that Iskcon was indulging in profiteering and fraudulent activities in the name of Lord Krishna. Producing documents including I-T records collected from the US to substantiate his charges, Kumar said Iskcon has managed to raise huge funds to the tune of crores in the US for the mid-day meal scheme, though they have been receiving financial aid from both the state and union governments. "It is illegal to collect funds for a government-sponsored programme," Kumar said.

Releasing copies of photographs taken by Iskcon to promote its mid-day meal scheme abroad, Kumar claimed the trust has collected donations abroad by portraying India and its children in a poor light.

He also charged the trustees with financial irregularities in executing the government-sponsored scheme and amassing wealth by investing in real estate. "Huge lands recently brought by Iskcon in Bangalore and Srirangapatna are in the names of the trustees. This is against the trust norms," he alleged.

Keeping all this in view, Kumar suggested the government should take steps to appoint an administrator of IAS rank and stop issuing grants to the Akshaya Patra programme immediately.

Responding to allegations of misuse of funds, Iskcon vice-president Chanchalapathi Das welcomed the government's decision to set up a House committee. "We will place all facts before the committee. Let the truth prevail," he said.

Refuting Kumar's allegations, Das maintained that all the trustees jointly manage properties and none of them earn any profit from these. To make the administration more transparent, he said all the governing council members including him had voluntarily disclosed financial status and personal assets through individual affidavits filed before a magistrate.

On why the trust based its fund-raising campaign in the US, Das remarked that the organization was based in the US to enable donors there to get tax exemption.

Source: TOI

The two houses belonging to C P Yogishwar, former MLA, were raided by the central bureau of investigation and income tax sleuths on Tuesday July 21. It may be recalled, that sandalwood actor and Congress MLA from Channapatna constituency, Yogeshwar, had unsuccessfully fought the Lok Sabha election as a BJP candidate from Bangalore Rural constituency recently after changing his allegiance. He is set to fight the coming assembly by poll with a BJP ticket from Channapatna.

His house located in Kuvempunagar Fifth Cross and his native village Chakkere apart from Karmayogi Apparels and Garments that he owns, his office in Shantinagar here, houses of his brothers C P Rajesh, Gangadhar and sisters and other relatives were also raided simultaneously.

60 officers were involved in this operation. Several people considered close to Yogeshwar also faced the raids. Although the officers are said to have laid their hands on some important documents and details on alleged fraud in Megacity Developers and Builders Ltd., with which Yogeshwar is associated, the officials have not leaked any details.

Source: Daiji World

The government got a Left-Right jab during zero hour in Rajya Sabha on Monday on the alleged
rice scam.

CPI's D Raja raised the issue and asked how an Indian firm Amira Foods Private Ltd had got an export order when there is a ban on the export of non-basmati rice. Calling it a scam worth Rs 2,500 crore, Raja demanded a thorough inquiry into the "loot". "It is a shame on India," he said.

Supporting Raja, BJP's Balbir Punj said just like the Bofors scam did not break in India, the rice scam has come from Ghana. He claimed that after exports were banned, public sector firms like STC and MMTC were asked to nominate Amira Foods. But the rice, he said, never reached Ghana. It was instead sold on high seas. "Officials made a killing," he alleged.

CPM's Sitaram Yechury and BJP's Prakash Javadekar associated themselves with the issue. Brinda Karat of CPM wanted to know how foodgrain was given out at PDS prices. BJP's SS Ahluwalia wanted the government to respond to it immediately.

Minister of state for science and technology Prithviraj Chavan said the concerns of members would be conveyed to the government.

Source: TOI

-Uses fake documents to get past panel of advocates and property evaluators

A GROUP of three scamsters succeeded in cheating Canara bank of Rs 10 lakh using fake documents showing ownership of property.

Sanghamitra Mukherjee, Aman Reddy and Kalpana approached the Shanti Nagar branch of the bank requesting a loan for "developing their business." They managed to secure a a loan of Rs 10 lakh by depositing the sale deed of a house as collateral surety.

They failed to pay the loan installments and were listed as defaulters. The bank officials then attempted to seize the house and discovered that the sale deed submitted as surety was fake.

What's worse, further enquiries revealed that Kalpana, one of the accused, had already taken a loan from the bank's BTM layout branch by producing the original property documents, before approaching the Shanti Nagar branch.

Following this, Canara Bank chief general manager Tomy Sebastian has not only filed a complaint for cheating against the trio but also one against the bank's general manager, accusing him of official misconduct.

Nexus?

In his complaint to the Ashok Nagar police, Sebastian mentioned that the loan was approved by a panel of advocates and evaluators who verified the documents and inspected the house.

Since they had failed to check if the documents were authentic, it shows the nexus between the officials and the accused, he said.

Source: Mid Day

An accused in the multi-crore stamp paper scam case has asked a special CBI court to name former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh as an
accused in three cases related to the scam.

The accused, Ram Ratan Soni, who moved the plea on Saturday, has been called "guru'' by stamp scam kingpin, Abdul Karim Telgi, as it was Soni who taught Telgi the art of making fake stamps. Special judge C K Bhedi has sought a reply on Soni's plea from prosecution lawyer, Pradeep Gharat, on July 23.

Deshmukh, who was the state revenue minister in 1994, had made an endorsement on Telgi's application for stamp vending licence in March 1994, after which the then superintendent of stamps, Radheshyam Mopalwar, cleared his papers. The licence papers were cleared when several applications were pending for more than three years.

In 1992, Telgi had been arrested for a passport forgery offence. "Telgi had already spent time in jail on forgery charges. Is it not the responsibility of the minister to check the credentials of a person before the endorsement is made?'' said Soni's lawyer I A Bagaria.

Mopalwar was made an accused in three cases by the same court on Friday under charges of cheating, forgery, fraud and sections of Prevention of Corruption Act. His name had come up in a statement given before court by Telgi. Mopalwar has been ordered to remain present before court on July 27.

As per Telgi's confession before a Pune magistrate in 2006, his "friend'' and politician, Anil Gote took him to Mantralaya and got an endorsement from Deshmukh's office. Gote is an accused in the special MCOCA case at Pune.

Source: TOI

A consortium of six banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI) had issued the Letters of Credit (LCs) to Spices Trading Corporation Ltd (STCL), investigations by the Enforcement Directorate probing the $250 m scrap scam have revealed.

It is reliably learnt that UCO Bank, Mid Corporate Branch, K G Road, Bangalore, remitted an amount of $16,134,061.24 to the ‘seller’ companies based in the US, Singapore and Dubai. The remittance was made as late as February 7, 2009.

According to ED sources in New Delhi, the Directorate’s Bangalore branch is now delving into all the documents related to the involvement of the bank consortium in the scam.

Since the ED began investigations into the Rs 1,208.48 crore scrap scam a couple of weeks ago, a corpus of evidence into the involvement of customs officials, banks and internationally-recognised certifiers has been verified. ED sources disclosed that the two private trading firms, Future Metals (Pvt) Ltd (FMPL) and Future Exim India (Pvt)Ltd (FEIPL) stopped all commercial operations two months ago. Subsequently, their owners, Sriram Sudheer and Naveen Sriram, registered another company by the name of Sun Singapore Exim (Pvt) Ltd. The office premises of Sun Singapore on M G Road were raided by ED sleuths a few days back and documents pertaining to FMPL and FEIPL were seized, ED sources said.

The ED suspects some key STCL officers, suspected to have colluded with the owners of FMPL and FEIPL, are in the US. Sources said STCL managing director K C Ponnana is now in the US and is expected to return next week when ED officials plan to examine him.

What has baffled the ED is the identity of Ahmed Harris, CEO of Hong Kong-based Sino Pacific (HK) Pvt Ltd, which was one of the overseas scrap buyers linked to FMPL and FEIPL. According to investigations by Deccan Herald, Harris is a resident of Vijayanagar in Bangalore. While he could not be traced, his house was found locked for the past two months.

Source: Deccan Herald

The Bangalore City police on Saturday registered a case in the quarter billion dollars scrap fraud.
The scam involved passing off iron ore scrap as nickel and copper scrap.

The Spices Trading Corporation Ltd (STCL), a wholly- owned subsidiary of the State Trading Corporation of India, had lodged a formal complaint with the Bangalore Police three weeks ago against Future Metals Pvt Ltd and Future Exim India Pvt Ltd — the two affiliate/group companies based in Bangalore. “Since the Enforcement Directorate had directed that an FIR should not be filed and sought two months to collect evidence, we were forced to keep mum,” a senior police officer said.

On Saturday, the DCP (Central) instructed the High Grounds police station to file an FIR against the two Bangalore-based firms, its MDs and directors — in all 11 members.

Busan trip

Meanwhile, STCL officials visited Busan in South Korea. The visit was prompted by Merae Metals’ court action.

The company, allegedly in collusion with the two Bangalore companies, approached the Busan District Court seeking an injunction against STCL’s bid to take possession of the consignments on the ground that the shipments belonged to it.

Containers opened

After all the drama, STCL managed to get a handful of containers opened and got to know that the scrap was just iron.

N Lakshmipathy, STCL chief manager, marketing, has given in writing that “everyone was shocked to see the content/cargo was nothing but steel iron scrap”.

TMT bars, broken engine parts of both cars and trucks, iron angles, empty drums, motor stamping, oil pipes, engine fans, fan blades, fan belts, iron parts, rack steel angles, compressed car bodies and huge blocks of rusted cast iron parts formed the consignments.

These had been loaded to maintain the weight and balance the containers.

Source: Deccan Herald

A special CBI court today made Radheshyam Mopalwar, former Superintendent of Stamps, an accused in the multi-crore fake stamp paper scam along with the kingpin Abdul Karim Telgi and has sent him summons directing him to remain present before the court on July 27.

Special CBI Judge Chitra Bedi today issued the summons following an application filed by Telgi's lawyer I A Bagaria seeking for Mopalwar to be declared as an accused in the case.

"We filed the application after Telgi in his confessional statement revealed that Mopalwar, who was the then Superintendent of the General Stamps office, was also involved in the fake stamp paper scam," Bagaria said.

The court today accepted the application and has declared Mopalwar as accused in three cases under various Sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC) like cheating, fraud and forgery.

Source: PTI(Press Trust of India)

Twelve years after the Framework Agreement (FWA) between the Government of Karnataka and the Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE) to implement the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project (BMICP) was signed, startling information on the acquisition of excess land for the project has come into the public domain, thanks to the Right to Information Act.

It is now established that over these years, the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB) acquired excess land of nearly 7,000 acres for the controversial project in violation of the FWA.

The documents, obtained by many individuals and activists under the RTI Act, and in the possession of Express, disclose that the KIADB, as early as 1998-1999, notified 21,000 acres of private land as against the sanctioned area of 13,237 acres in FWA.

These docume nts have been compiled into a book titled “White Paper on BMICP fraud” published by the Dalit Sangharsha Samiti The KIADB, in 1999, notified 5,688 acres of government land to be given to the project as against the sanctioned area of 6,956 acres in the FWA. In all, the KIADB agreed to give 26,688 acres of land to NICE instead of 20,193 acres as agreed in the FWA.

Section A comprises 41 km of peripheral road, 9.8 km of link road and 13 km of expressway from Bangalore to Bidadi.

The documents also point out that KIADB notified 5,675 acres for peripheral road portion alone as against 2,193 acres required in FWA.

For the link road, the KIADB has notified 563 acres of land as against 278 acres required in the FWA. For the expressway, KIADB notified 6,348 acres against the requirement of 4,568 acres of land.

The NICE spokesperson said, “The expert panel formed to study this issue has given clear guidance. We are following the same. All allegations are baseless.

The matter is still in the court and we will adhere to the court orders given earlier.” Clause misused All these years, officials have buried these violations under the confidentiality clause in the FWA. The clause says, “Each party shall hold in strict confidence all confidential information received by it from the other party. The party receiving such confidential information shall not publish or otherwise disclose or use the confidential information for its own purposes.” Thanks to RTI activists and farmers, the issue came out in the open. Acting on this, the government on July 17, 2008, wrote to the chief executive officer of KIADB seeking explanation about the basis on which these lands were notified and in some cases, given to NICE.

In Section A alone, KIADB has notified 12,586 acres of land instead of 6,999 acres sanctioned. The then special DC had said that KIADB had admitted that land acquisition notifications were issued based on requirement indicated by promoter company and not on the basis of any technical drawings approved by the government or PWD or the FWA.

Source: Express Buzz

We (@NG) have been following the KI box-office with great amount of scrutiny since it released on 3rd July. There were lot of unanswered questions raised throughout this period. There has been an dedicated thread too : LINK

When Taran’s reported centers came out, he had mixed gross and Net collections which made it very difficult to make a good estimation as I had only a few common centers to refer to. To that extent, Taran had been successful in his campaign.

Now with Film Information data available, a detailed analysis with the reported centers of New York, Race and Welcome has been possible, which shows the KI week 1 is around just 31 cr. The opening week has posted good numbers, but is nothing extra-ordinary as per the PR claims. The opening week is not in the range of biggest openers till date like Ghajini, SIK, RNBDJ. It is in fact less than OSO, Welcome, Dhoom 2 and Race. Even Golmaal Returns had better prolonged first week.

LINK

What does it indicate?

It indicates that some of our questions were bang on target!

Producers claimed a 60 cr worldwide gross for the weekend and 100 cr worldwide gross for week 1. Weekend Net figures of 25 cr was fed to media and its PR/publicity machinery for KI (IndiaFM and Taran Adarsh included along with BOI and other sites).

Whereas a lot of logic/reasoning indicated that KI weekend Net in India was likely to be around 20 cr. Even Eros had claimed a 32cr Gross (20 cr Net) over the weekend in India in its first press release: Link. But later as Producers and Akshay Kumar throwed numbers and a publicity gimmick of a party, Eros too came up with a 100 cr imagination.

So what happened here? Did KI do 25 cr in the weekend?

If so then the movie had crashed from then on to reach just 31 cr in week 1. If that is indeed true then the movie should see 70-80% drop in week 2.

The other possibility is that the movie did just 20 cr over the weekend and then fell by 50% or so in the 4 weekdays to add another 10-11 cr. If so then the movie has not crashed and the second week should not see anything more than 60-70% drop in collections.

Whatever happened in week 1, one thing is beyond doubt - Producer Nadiadwala, Akshay Kumar and Eros has reached the pinnacle of shameful dishonesty and tried to pull off the Biggest Scam in the history of Bollywood box-office!

Source: naachgaana.com

Several farmers from Gonipura village in Kumbalgodu village staged a protest last week against what they termed “forcible acquisition” of their land by Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise for the construction of the Bangalore- Mysore Infrastructure Corridor. It was one of the many protests that have been held over the past few months.

At the core of the issue is the changed alignment of the infrastructure corridor. While NICE maintains that it has the mandate to deviate from the original alignment decided after the framework agreement, farmers say that it does not have the legal authority to do so.

Documents available with the Express show that the alignment was indeed changed to suit the concessionaire’s interests. These documents have been accessed under the Right to Information by farmers and have been compiled into a book titled “White Paper on BMICP fraud” published by the Dalit Sangharsha Samiti.

The RTI documents show that the alignment was changed from what was originally conceived – and forwarded to the government. For instance, a letter dated July 2, 1996 addressed to the Deputy Commissioner, Bangalore Urban, lists the survey numbers of land to be acquired for the project. Another letter addressed to the Secretary, PWD, dated November 26, 1996 lists the same survey numbers. The then PWD Secretary C R Ramesh circulated the survey numbers among various departments for the implementation of the project. Both these letters are backed by a Government Order dated November 20, 1995 for the implementation of the project.

However, a note circulated by the then Chief Secretary, B R Prabhakara, on July 31, 1997 contains radically different survey numbers.

For instance, village Chikka Thoguru where survey numbers 28, 29, 30, 34, 35, 46-49, 51, 52 have been notified does not even find a mention either in the note circulated by the PWD secretary (on 26/11/96) or in the letter dated 2/07/96 to the Bangalore Urban Deputy Commissioner. Moreover, there is no backing of a GO for the changed survey numbers, the farmers claim.

Farmers and RTI activists say that similarly, government and private land in villages like Beratena Agrahara, Basapura, Begur, Yelenahalli, Kamanahalli and several others have been notified to be acquired.

In all, land in 19 villages has been notified “illegally”. They claim that these survey numbers were not part of the correspondence dated 26/11/96 and 2/07/96.

However, the survey numbers of these villages have been included in the note that the Chief Secretary circulated among various departments on 31/07/97.

What’s more, the government did not even carry out a joint survey of the land to be acquired. The survey was carried out singlehandedly by the concessionaire, a fact which Ashok Kheny, the MD of NICE, has admitted to in the High Court.

Source: Express Buzz

It has come to light, that the former governor of the state, Rameshwar Thakur, had written to the state Lokayukta to delete reference to the former state chief minister Dharam Singh from the Lokayukta investigation report on illegal mining activities in the state.

It may be recalled, that the Lokayukta had forwarded a copy of the report on the mining scam, to the state governor. The Lokayukta had written, that taking action against a former chief minister was outside the purview of the state government and had accordingly, suggested to the governor to initiate suitable action against Singh. In response thereof, the governor had asked the Lokayukta to delete the name of Dharam Singh from the report itself!

As this happened to be the final report on the illegal mining activities figuring Dharam Singh's involvement, the Lokayukta had referred these activities to the governor for suitable action. Although the governor in turn, recommended for removing Singh's name from the report, the possibility of doing anything at this juncture is remote, in view of the fact that the report has already been submitted to the state government.

In his report, the Lokayukta had estimated that the state government lost about Rs 23 crore because of the decisions taken by the government when he was in charge. At the same time, he had pointed out that there is no evidence about Singh having accepted any gratification for the favours conceded by him. Rameshwar Thakur, who was transferred to Madhya Pradesh on June 29, had written a letter six days prior to his relief, on June 23. As the Lokayukta was on leave, the letter reached him on July 6 and the enclosure to the letter, written by the secretary to the governor, explains reason for the delayed delivery of letter.

It is learnt, the governor had discussed the issue earlier too with the Lokayukta, arguing that the inclusion of the name of Dharam Singh in the report can not be accepted. The governor rested his opinion on the argument that the former chief minister might have taken some decisions in public interest. However, the Lokayukta, in his report, had cited that causing loss to the government does not fall under public interest. The governor also had questioned the move of the Lokayukta to form a committee for investigating illegal mining.

In the action taken report the government has submitted to the Lokayukta, the government has claimed that it is seeking legal opinion on the recommendation against Dharam singh.

The incident might gain political overtones in the coming days, and the gubernatorial post of the governor might come under clouds and the Congressmen might be accused of using this position for their personal benefits.

No Action against Officials: In the meantime, the government seems to be dragging its feet on the issue of making the guilty officials accountable, based on the Lokayukta report. It has not even initiated the process of department inquiry against IAS officers Gangaram Baderia, Dr D S Ashwath, Mahendra Jain, V Umesh, I R Perumal, IPS officer Jija Harisingh and the then mining department director Dr Basappa. There is no indication that it would do so at an early date. The Lokayukta had indicated, that the loss the government has suffered because of the action of these officials, has to be recovered from the concerned officers. As the Lokayukta had already served notices and prepared the report after verifying the objections filed by the concerned officers, the government's stand that it has kept pending the necessary action against some of the officers as they have filed objections, does not hold water. Many believe that the government wants to protect these officials, who allegedly caused losses running into hundreds of crores of rupees to Mysore Minerals td, due to their actions.

Source: Daiji World

The Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police on Friday arrested two directors of B K Jewelers House Marketing Private
Limited, situated at Sant Nagar near Tilak Nagar in west Delhi, for allegedly cheating over 150 investors.

According to the police, the accused, Chetan Malik (25) and Rajesh Malik (40), had been evading arrest from past two months. "The crime branch received over 150 complaints alleging the company had floated a lucrative investment scheme and later duped people. Under the scheme, if a person invests in the scheme from Rs 3,533 to Rs 3,36,738 the company would give him/her huge returns. Special commissions were offered to those who brought in more investors,'' said a senior EOW officer.

The company allegedly conducted seminars and conference on their office premises and other places in order to attract investors. Added the officer: "For the investment of Rs 13,444, the investor was promised returns varying from Rs 26,000 to 26,00,000 within 12 months, depending upon the growth of the company. During investigations we came to know that the accused had made large number of dummy investors to siphon out money from the company.''

The accused were reportedly shifting their locations continuously. "Raids were being conducted at their hideouts. The accused could not sustain the pressure and surrendered on Friday. We have appointed auditors to assess the scale of the scam,'' the officer added.

Source :TOI

Pushed against the wall by the Opposition onslaught over illegal manganese mining in Keonjhar district, chief minister Naveen
Patnaik has ordered a vigilance inquiry into the alleged mining scam
involving Ram Bahadur Thakur Limited (RBTL).

The decision came in the face of BJP's demand for a CBI probe into the illegal mining allegedly being done by the private company in connivance with government officials.

BJP had earlier alleged that the private company was mining the area, although the state government had not granted it lease. The party had alleged in the Assembly that the company had even executed a power of attorney in favour of one Shakti Ranjan Das, violating the law.

After making much hue and cry over the issue in Assembly on Friday, the Opposition BJP as well as Congress have shown their intent to nail down the Naveen Patnaik dispensation over the rampant illegal mining being done in Keonjhar district.

While a BJP team led by its legislature party leader K V Singhdeo had visited the mining areas in Joda on Saturday, a delegation from Congress headed by leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh toured the area to assess the ground realities.

Government officials said the chief minister has directed anti-corruption sleuths to find out whether any illegal mining was taking place in the area proposed to be leased to Ram Bahadur Thakur Limited or not, and, if so, who were involved in the illegal activity. The vigilance wing has also been asked to inquire the role of the director, mines, and other officers of the directorate of mines; and the authenticity of the power of attorney granted to Shakti Ranjan Das by RBTL.

Sources in the chief minister's office informed that the state government had in 1994 recommended to the Centre for grant of mining lease over 36 hectare in favour of RBTL and the latter had given its nod two years later. But the state government had thereafter not gone ahead with grant of mining lease to the company.

BJP, however, expressed its displeasure over the government ordering a vigilance probe instead of CBI inquiry into the Rs 4000 crore mining scam. "The state government is trying to suppress the scam by rejecting our demand. Vigilance is a tool of the state government, CBI investigation should be ordered to bring out the truth," said state BJP president Suresh Pujari.

Source: TOI

A fresh controversy has erupted over previous governor Rameshwar Thakur's letter giving a clean chit to former chief minister N Dharam Singh, in the alleged illegal mining scam. Thakur's letter, which reached the Lok Ayukta's office more than a week after it was written, reportedly states that Singh, as CM, took the decision in the interest of the public and could be let off in the alleged mining scam.

The big question now is: what caused the delay in Thakur's letter reaching the Lok Ayukta office? "The letter reached the office on July 6, while Thakur wrote it on June 23,'' sources said. He demitted office on June 29.

As per directions, Lok Ayukta Justice N Santosh Hegde inquired into the illegal mining activities from 2000 to 2007. The report highlighted that crores of royalty which the state government had lost was due to the nexus between politicians, bureaucrats, police and those in the mining business. The inquiry report also points a finger to Singh's tenure, during whose time the government lost revenue to the tune of over Rs 23 crore.

The loss caused to the exchequer by a former chief minister and 11 government servants, including one IPS and 6 IAS officials, in the scam is Rs 712.07 crore. The government has not made the report public and instead, appointed a three-member panel of IAS officers to go through the recommendations. "Initiate proceedings under Section 12(3) of the Lok Ayukta Act. A separate recommendation is made to the competent authority to initiate appropriate proceedings against the former CM for recovery of the loss,'' the report said.

Hegde, in his report, is said to have asked Thakur to initiate action against Singh for his alleged involvement. However, Thakur is said to have given Singh a clean chit before demitting office. Meanwhile, chief secretary Sudhakar Rao, while submitting the action taken report (ATR) to the Lok Ayukta, reportedly told him that action should be taken against those named in the report.

With this development, the BJP, which has been accused of encouraging illegal mining activities, is preparing to put the blame squarely back on the Congress.

The other officers who have been named in the report are: V Umesh, I R Perumal, D S Aswath, Mahendra Jain, K S Manjunath (all IAS), Jija M Harisingh (IPS), H Srinivas, R Ramappa and Shankarlingaiah.

Source: TOI

An Indian man has been extradited to the U.S. from Hong Kong on charges of hacking into online brokerage accounts in order to manipulate stock prices. Jaisankar Marimuthu, 34, of Chennai, has entered a not guilty plea in U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska. He has become the latest entrant in what authorities are describing as an international scheme called 'hack, pump and dump.'

According to Ian McCaleb, a Department of Justice spokesman, another man, Thirugnanam Ramanathan had pleaded guilty to fraud charges and was sentence to two years in jail in September. A third man, Chockalingam Ramanathan, is charged with the same hacking charges, but he is still at large. These three men were charged two years ago for a 2006 scheme in which they allegedly hacked into online brokerages or created new accounts using stolen identities, then bought and sold stocks in order to manipulate prices to their benefit. They had hacked in 60 accounts in nine brokerage firms which included ETrade and TD Ameritrade. One of these firms reported a loss of up to $2 million due to this scam.

The trio drove up prices of low-volume stocks they owned, such as Acordia Therapeutics, Pacel and IGI and then bought shares with hacked accounts then dumped the stocks before the price dropped. In October 2006, they managed to manipulate prices of few Google shares and offered them at $240, which was half its value.

Police is still clueless as to how these three culprits managed to hack into the accounts, but court filings suggest that they may have obtained them from Internet cafes used by American and European visitors in Bangkok. Wireless networks at hotels and Internet cafes can be a security risk, especially if they are unencrypted or use the cracked Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) system to secure network traffic.

Source: Silicon India

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a chargesheet in the case of Fun Republic — the city’s first multiplex — in the court of Special Judge, CBI, Chandigarh, on Friday.

Prominent businessman and senior Congress leader Kewal Dhillon, Atul Goel of M/s E-City Entertainment, Manimajra, Sub-Divisional Officer T P Singh, Assistant Engineer Brij Mohan Draftsman Sandeep Sharma; Architect Arun Loomba, have been named in the chargesheet.

The CBI has said that Dhillon, Goel and Lumba, in connivance with the officials of building branch, cheated the government/ Building Branch/Municipal Corporation to the tune of around Rs 6.28 crore.

Undue profits were made by M/s Dhillon Brothers Private Limited, Chandigarh and M/s E-City Entertainment, Manimajra, while the Chandigarh Administration suffered loss as Form ‘B’ dated June 19, 2006, was issued in blatant violations of Rule 18 of Capital of Punjab (Regulation and Development) Act 1952, the investigating agency added.

The chargesheet also said that the officials of building branch extended undue favours to M/s Dhillon Brothers while sanctioning the building plan and granting occupation certificate by ignoring the serious violations of building bylaws.

Conversion/composition charges of around Rs 95.96 lakh; including Rs 9.18 lakh for converting offices spaces to Athena Pub and Bar on the fourth floor of the building, were not collected from the company, thus causing loss to the government exchequer, the chargesheet said.

Dhillon also obtained L-4 licence on November 21, 2005, for Athena Bar and Lounge located in the rear portion of the building and started its operation on November 28, 2005, without regularising the area in use for a restaurant and bar.

On inspecting the premises, the municipal corporation also imposed a penalty of around Rs 3.83 crore on Dhillon.

According to the chargesheet, the building was illegally possessed on November 28, 2003, without obtaining the occupation certificate from a competent authority. Thus, the fine calculated for misuse of the building was calculated as Rs 5.32 crore as on February 25, 2007.

Source: Indian Express

Observing that a number of cheating cases related to land disputes were being registered in the city, police commissioner Shankar Bidari has asked the public to make required enquiry before buying a site or flat. Citing the recent arrest of Joseph Chacko and the Orange properties and Country Club scams, the commissioner asked the public to enquire before investing on land.

Chacko’s case Bidari has requested the government to hand over the Joseph Chacko case to CoD. He said, “The investigations in this case have revealed that Chacko had not just cheated people in Bangalore city, but also in rural areas.” So far, about 40 cases against Chacko have been unearthed and police suspect the number to go up as a number of NRIs might still be unaware that they have been cheated. He was accused of luring NRIs to invest in the resort project, by claiming they would be entitled for a seven- day stay in a year in the resort. Besides, they would get 55 per cent of the rent gained by letting out their rooms, while the resort would keep 45 per cent.

Chacko was arrested by Bangalore CCB at Kolkata airport and brought here after getting a body warrant from the Kolkata court to interrogate him.The accused however expressed willingness to settle the cheating cases.

Do not get too tempted if you have interview calls from software major Wipro Technologies in your inbox as the emails are fake and the company has warned against falling prey to such bogus mail.

Wipro Vice-president, Talent Acquisition, Pradeep Bahirwani told PTI that company had come across such fradulent letters earlier as well "but this time we have come across e-mails that carry the company logo and its letterhead".

The letters signed by one Narayan Murli ask aspirants to deposit a "refundable" security deposit of Rs 4,670 in a particular account number as payment towards the interview and offers attractive salaries in the range of Rs 15,000 to Rs 65,000 a month, he said.

The e-mails had been sent out to job aspirants registered in different job portals informing that they had been shortlisted for interviews for various vacancies ranging from software programme. "We are not sure how many such letters have been issued, but we wish to warn aspirants not to fall prey to it." These letters, he said, were replete with spelling mistakes and erroneous language and originated from some public domain and not from the company's domain.

"Moreover the letters state that the office is located in Noida and the interview is scheduled there. In fact, we do not have an office in Noida", he said. Pradeep said the common modus operandi of these fraudsters, who aim at maximising their returns from these interview payments, was that they keep changing the account numbers and close down the accounts after a period of time. The names of those signing the letters and the account holder also keep changing. The account in this particular incident was registered with a leading bank.

The designation of the person signing the letter was never mentioned in these letters, he said.

Giving details on Wipro's recruitment procedure,Pradeep said it drew talent from various sources, including campus, portals and fell on its own data base. The letters orignated from its company domain and most important they never charged any payment, he said.

The software major has also spoken to one of the job portals about these fradulent letters.

The company which is in the process of filing a complaint with the police warned aspirants from tier two and three cities with less access to information and were more likely to fall prey.

Such fradulent letters were not necessarily restricted to Wipro.Similar instances had been reported from other IT firms as well, he said.

Source: India Times

After 20 days of investigation, the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police has found that Subhash Aggarwal, who cheated hundreds of people in Delhi, invested crores of rupees in the jewellery market.

The police have established that he invested around Rs 4 crore in the commodity market (by playing satta in the jewellery market) and lost all the money.

The police have received 160 complaints till now and the scam, called “Commodity Markets scam”, has reached up to Rs 7 crore in worth. A source said, “Apart from what he lost in playing satta on gold, diamonds and silver, he invested the rest in four properties in Noida and Delhi, and the office in Satya Enclave in Outer Delhi from where he ran his cheating business.”

Aggarwal was running an office in the name of ‘Stop Loss Commodity Ltd’ in Satya Enclave for two-and-a-half years. He had made his wife, Snehlata Aggarwal, director of the company. Both were arrested on June 12 from the Capital and are at present in judicial custody.

Officials said the 160 complaints received till now are genuine and they are waiting for more people to come in with complaints. Sources said they have also recovered all the incriminating documents related to investments in his company and the satta played by Aggarwal.

A senior official said the complaints have stopped coming these last few days, otherwise they were receiving four to five complaints everyday from residents of Satya Enclave, Aman Vihar, Prem Nagar, Mundka, Uttam Nagar and other areas of West and Outer Delhi. “The fraud may go up to Rs 10 crore if all aggrieved persons approach us,” the official said. The police are still scrutinising Aggarwal’s 15 bank accounts to get more details about the fraud.

Aggarwal reportedly duped people by asking them to invest in his company and promised high returns. “Aggarwal gave them post-dated cheques of the amount he claimed would be given as returns. But these cheques, of which we have recovered some, were never cleared,” an officer said.

Source:Indian Express

The amount of Michael Jackson memorabilia for sale on eBay increased nearly 10,000 percent the morning after the pop star’s death from a possible heart attack. And with that surge, the Better Business Bureau of Greater Maryland is cautioning buyers about purchasing fake merchandise. The increase in memorabilia makes buyers more susceptible to price inflation, counterfeits and internet scams that can threaten sensitive information, officials said.

“Following the death of Princess Diana, the market was flooded with mass-produced items commemorating her death, including special edition Beanie Babies that at one time sold for more than $100 but are now on garage sale tables for a buck,” said Angie Barnett, CEO of the Better Business Bureau.Sellers listed an average of 200 to 400 Michael Jackson memorabilia items daily on eBay, but the number spiked to 20,000 after his death, according to Smartmoney.com, a web site that covers Wall Street.

Michael Jackson sold 750 million albums during his four-decade music career, according to the recording industry publication Billboard Magazine. Jackson’s “Thriller” album is one of the top-selling albums of all time, with 40 million copies sold around the world.

Michael Jackson memorabilia is selling for anywhere from $21 million — for the michaeljackson.com Internet domain name — to $1.79 for a Michael Jackson collectable vinyl window sticker.

The Better Business Bureau has not received any official complaints about fake merchandise, but they have seen e-mail scams that use Michael Jackson’s death as a ploy to get harvest people’s sensitive personal information. Barnett said the scam e-mails might say “download a secret Michael Jackson video” — but when a person actually clicks on the e-mail, they are really downloading a so-called trojan horse program that can access passwords and other sensitive information off a computer and send it to a remote location.

The Better Business Bureau advises people to do research before buying any Michael Jackson memorabilia, confirm its authenticity with a third party, make the purchase with a credit card and look for sites that are approved by the Better Business Bureau to ensure legitimacy.

Source:bizjournals

Within a fortnight of expressing concern over privatisation of education and grant of affiliation to professional colleges by
regulators without following the guidelines, the Supreme Court on Monday stumbled upon a similar scam
pertaining to private law colleges.

A vacation Bench comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and A K Ganguly felt that the problem was much larger than the case pertaining to a private law college in Madhya Pradesh and appointed a high-level probe team headed by Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam and comprising Supreme Court Bar Association president M N Krishnamani to go into the root of the problem.

The issue came under the court's scanner after the Bar Council of India challenged the MP High Court's order directing fresh inspection of Bonnie Foi Law College at Bhopal by two advocates saying it alone was statutorily mandated to inspect law colleges seeking affiliation.

"The issue is much larger," said the Bench and permitted the committee to take assistance of legal experts and academicians in its endeavour to get to the root of the problem concerning private law colleges.

The Bench said it has knowledge of law colleges in Mumbai operating from two-room set-ups and was critical of the manner in which BCI granted affiliation to private law colleges.

Refusing to place much weight on the report of BCI, the Bench said: "This is not the way inspection is to be carried out. It's a matter of common knowledge that before granting affiliation, proper exercise is to be carried out about faculty, infrastructure, library, etc. It is also necessary whether requisite number of faculty members are employed by the college and whether they are granted minimum pay-scale recommended by the Fifth and the Sixth Pay Commissions.

Slamming the BCI, the Bench said: "They (BCI) do not know what to inspect. The BCI report of inspection is very perfunctory. Those in the BCI, we are very sorry to say this, are not quite aware that the legal education cell within BCI dealing with grant of affiliation is headed by a retired Supreme Court judge and a high court judge to assist him."

Subramanium agreed with the Bench that there was a serious dearth of modern technical apparatus, efficient stock of foreign literature on developing laws and suggested a thorough scrutiny of private law colleges prior to grant of affiliation.

In the case of Bonnie Foi Law College, the court directed two members of BCI to conduct a fresh inspection along with two independent members, director of the National Judicial Academy (Bhopal) and NL Mitra, former vice-chancellor of the National Law University in Bangalore.

Source:TOI

Think twice, or more, before you hand over those land records to brokers. It could get you into trouble as the land could be sold for lakhs without you even getting a whiff of the deal.

Senior CCB police perssonnel state that a number of such cases are registered, and the loopholes in the system make it easy for frauds to escape and continue with such cases. And the innocent victims end up paying the price. On Monday, a 45-year-old man was driven to commit suicide at the Sampigehalli police station limits as he had fallen prey to one such trick.

As land value in Bangalore has shot up in the recent past, making money by producing fake land documents have become easy and common. Also, a number of banks eagerly come forward to provide loans without feeling the need to verify the documents.

Many bank officials, before giving away the loan, fail to check with neighbours as to who is the real owner of the land. Police say that such cases are commonly reported and lack of stringent rules has lead to the rise in such crimes. Quoting the crores of loss by the Vini vinc scam, CCB Inspector SK Umesh said, “Such cases have shot up, and unfortunately, the victims are still unaware of being cheated.

Police investigations to trace the culprit themselves cost lakhs, but they easily get released on bail.” These cases are booked under section 420 for cheating and 468 for forgery. However, when an accused is arrested under these charges, they can be released on bail by paying a surety of Rs 5,000.

Even the courts come across such cases.

A number of fake documents come before the court and when suspicions arise, they are sent to the FSL. After the verification and a confirmation that they are fake documents, an enquiry is ordered. Senior officials say that unless even the court takes these cases separately and strictly, it is not possible to curb or stop such incidents from happening.

There are close to 200 cheating cases registered in the city every month. These cases include such fake land grabbing incidents and are treated on the lines of other petty cheating cases. Unless such cases are considered separately as land grabbing, it is difficult to put a check.

Capital Crime

On Monday morning, 45-year-old Venkatesh, a resident of Agrahara Layout in Sampigehalli committed suicide when his wife was away to buy milk.

Sampigehalli ACP Ramachandrappa, said, “Venkatesh is from a very poor family and had an inherited property. He was in need of money and so had planned to sell the same and had given the photocopy of his land documents to a land dealer.

However, it was in the year 2006 that he came to know that a loan of Rs 8 lakh was availed on his property without his knowledge by the brokers. He lodged a case at Chikajala police station and it was transferred to Sampigehalli police station this year in February. Though the police enquiry was going on, unable to face the pressure by bank officials who demanded him to pay the money, he committed suicide on Monday morning.” The brokers including Kiran, Ravi, Siddanegowda and others have allegedly prepared fake land documents and by claiming that someone else was Venkatesh, had availed the loan. A case was registered at Sampigehalli police station and investigations are going on.

Source:Express Buzz

After the infamous Viniv Inc scam, Bangalore police busted two gangs who were running “profit-sharing’’ companies, Info Science and Icons, and had cheated investors of Rs 25 crore.

The accused had advertised that if investors paid Rs 50,000, the company, which is located in Banashankari, will buy computers and rent them out. Investors would get the rent of Rs 4,000 to 6,000 a month as profit. For women and senior citizens, they had promised returns of Rs 3,500 for a deposit of Rs 50,000. Initially, they paid the interest promptly and after gaining investors’ confidence, they disappeared.

The company’s managing director, H R Prabhakar had raked in about Rs 25 crore and escaped on March 23. When the company shut down, investors lodged cases at Chennammanakere Achkat, Magadi Road and Girinagar police stations against Prabhakar, general manager B N Radhamani, director and share holders H R Venkatesh Prasad and H R Anand. On collecting information, the Central Crime Branch (CCB) sleuths found that Prabhakar had taken shelter in America.

They forced him to return to Bnagalore and arrested him and his associates by laying a trap.

The company had branches at Rajajinagar and Mumbai and advertised in newspapers and on the internet. They had bought six sites at Krishnarajapuram and Seegehalli costing upto Rs 1 crore, two cars worth about Rs 23 lakh, computers, laptops and other goods worth Rs 2 crore.

Source: Express Buzz

An engineering graduate
lodged a complaint with the Nandambakkam police station on Wednesday saying that a person had cheated him of
over Rs 81,000 with the promise of a job in a private company.

According to the complaint from Sivarajan of Iswaran Koil Street in Nandambakkam, he was searching for a job some months ago when he met T Ganesan, a retired official of a public sector bank.

The latter then introduced him to Srikanth of a private company. Srikanth assured him that he would get him a job and asked him to pay some money.

Sivarajan, who was keen on gettting a job, said he would pay the amount on an instalment basis, and, in the last six months, he paid Rs 81,000. Then he lost contact with Srikanth and did not get the interview call either.

When Sivarajan asked Ganesan about Srikanth's whereabouts, he was told that Srikanth had to pay him some money too.

Sivarajan then approached the police who registered a case and began investigations. A senior police officer with the Chennai suburban commissionerate said that atleast one job cheating case was registered every month.

"There are lot of engineering graduates who are without a job. Hence, scamsters make use of such people and cheat them. It is always better to enquire about the person who offers to get a job," said the police officer.

Source:TOI

Lokayukta Justice N Santosh Hegde, who has expressed his displeasure at the lack of interest being shown by the state government towards the implementation of the report submitted by him about illegal mining activity in the state, has decided to write to the state government, seeking details of the steps it has taken in relation to the said report.

This will be the final letter the Lokayukta would be addressing to the state government, seeking to know as to whether the state is committed to accept the report and implement the report in Toto or does it propose to reject it. The Lokayukta, after waiting for the response of the state about its stand on the report, will directly report to the state governor.

At the time the report was submitted, the Lokayukta had sought action to be taken within three months. The chief secretary, who met the Lokayukta later, had sought extra time in view of the election. The Lokayukta said, it has been six months since the report was submitted and the elections passed two months ago. "The Lokayukta does not have any information other than that a committee was being formed under the presidentship of the additional secretary of the government. We are in the dark as to what further action was taken or is being taken," Hegde said.

Source:daijiworld

A MAN accused of swindling Bahrain-based Indian investors out of around BD20 million in bogus land deals has been arrested.Dozens of Indians living in Bahrain have reportedly filed police complaints in India against Crowne Plaza International Hotels and Resorts owner Joseph Chacko.

The company is based in Bangalore and has nothing to do with the Crowne Plaza Bahrain. Chacko is accused of selling apartments and plots of land to expatriate Indians all over the Gulf, then selling them on without telling them. The businessman, originally from Kerala, but settled in Bangalore, is also accused of duping poor Indians back home into giving him power of attorney to sell their land - then never paying them.

Apartment owners claim they were never given the proper ownership documents. Chacko allegedly cheated non-resident Indians (NRIs) around the Gulf out of around BD50 million over the past 10 years. Investors claim that at least BD20 million was collected from Bahrain, but that many investors are reluctant to come forward.

Chacko was arrested on Wednesday at Kolkata International Airport by the City Crime Branch (CCB) Bangalore and has been remanded in police custody until next Monday for further investigation. Bangalore police are interrogating him about alleged fraud, following nearly 40 complaints registered in various police stations in the city.

Chacko had first come to Bahrain in 1999 to market properties and then re-visited several times until 2003, said a Bahrain-based investor, who did not want to be named. "Though the property is presently in our control, we are still to get all the deeds and documents, including the parent deed from Mr Chacko for our property," he said. "We have been requesting him for this for several years and the last time I spoke to him was around five months ago. "Unless we get all the documents, there is always risk of our property being encroached by others.

"Now there is hope that things will be sorted out."

It is understood Chacko moved from India to Kuwait in 1995 and became an NRI. He began developing several residential layouts in Bangalore exclusively for NRIs across the Gulf, the UK, the US, South Africa and elsewhere, said sources. It is thought that there are other investors in Bahrain who have not come forward to complain.

"We have been advertising on and off for people in Bahrain who have been duped by this person to join hands so that we could all move together," said one investor, who would not be named.

"But we have not been completely successful. So far we have been able to get about 20 people from Bahrain, but there are more and they are not willing to come forward for several reasons."

He said many more investors were complaining in private, but were not joining the petition to officially file their cases.

Investors in Bahrain who have not yet joined the group can contact on 39672230 or 17628481.

Source: Gulf Daily News

Recently, a few gullible customers gathered at the Press Club alleging that there were cheated by Orange Properties. They claimed that they were taken for a ride by the attractive hoardings and advertisements published in national dailies a few months ago.

According to them, there was no dearth of sales executives of that land developer
to collect money from them but the promised sites never turned up.It may not be an exaggeration to say that their allegation is not an isolated case in Bangalore.These victims of a real-estate bust were at least able to come together to expose a racket of that land developer.

But how many among us can actually raise our voice against greedy land developers? It was not long ago that a land developer-cum-hero Yogeshwar faced similar problems. It may be recalled that Yogeshwar launched the Megacity project more than a decade ago. Ishwarya Rai was the chief guest at a function organised at the Bangalore Palace. Impressed by the show of the Megacity project, many people paid the company promoted by Yogeshwar. Many of them neither got housing sites nor their money from him. It will be a herculean task for a middle-class retired person to get back his/her money from the land developer. “It is impossible to fight against him.

He was elected as MLA from Channapatna.

They keep on telling me that I will get the site whenever I visited their office. I cannot visit their office any more. I am leaving it to the God,’’ says P G Srinivasamurthy (name changed), one of the victims.

There are many people who have been repenting their decision of buying sites at places such as Krishnarajapuram, Devasandra, Ramamurthynagar, Kaggadasapura, A Narayanapura. These areas were under the jurisdictions of KR Puram and Mahadevarapura CMCs. There were occasions where a realtor and land-lord joined hands and sold one site to more than three to four buyers with active support from corrupt officials at the respective subregistrar offices. A few of the realtors have joined political parties and even got elected as councillors.

After becoming elected representatives, these realtors get full support from the local police stations.

“I purchased the site a few years ago. One of the realtors of B Narayanapura had even collected 2 per cent of the site cost as commission for introducing me to the land-owner. Now, both of them have joined hands and are demanding more money from me claiming that the registration of the site is not valid since the landowner’s son had not signed on the registration document. I have no option left,’’ said Ramanaiah of Akashnagar.

Recently, one land developer formed a Layout near KR Puram and sold sites only to buyers from neighbouring states. After a few months, he formed one more Layout on the same land by applying a few changes and modifications to the existing layout plan. Surprisingly, he succeeded in selling all the sites within a short span.

One of the buyers is a priest from Tirupati. The priest was shocked when he failed to locate his site in the layout where site numbers and road plans were changed several times and sold to many people.

A word of caution

One has to be very careful and must verify whether the land developer has availed of the necessary approval from the authorities concerned to form the layout.

There is no dearth of corrupt officials among the employees at the concerned offices who could collude with land developers to create fake approval letters.

So think twice before investing in those attractive offers. It would be prudent to visit the authorities concerned to verify whether the layout has the approval or not.

It may not be an exaggeration to say that their allegation is not an isolated case in Bangalore. These victims of a real-estate bust were at least able to come together to expose a racket of that land developer.

But how many among us can actually raise our voice against greedy land developers? Recently, one land developer formed a Layout near KR Puram and sold sites only to buyers from neighbouring states. After a few months, he formed one more Layout on the same land by applying a few changes and modifications.

He succeeded in selling all the sites within a short span..

Source: Express Buzz