Chargesheet
to be filed soon on Marketing
Cos...................................................The Economic
Offences Wing of the Crime Branch, Kozhikode, is finalising the
procedures to file charges against multi-level marketing and money chain
companies.
While the direct marketing giant Amway has been
publishing detailed and full-page advertisements in news dailies
explaining the ‘genuineness’ of their operations, the investigators said
they were still going through the large heap of documents to be
processed before filing charges against Amway.
It is learnt
that a team led by P.A. Valsan, Superintendent of Police, Crime Branch
(Economic Offences), will take at least five to six months before a
clear picture emerges and charges are filed before the Judicial First
Class Magistrate, Thalassery.
Police sources said that these
advertisements clearly violated the clauses of the Prize Chits and Money
Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act of 1978, under which the Crime Branch
has registered a series of cases on complaints against chain-marketing
and direct-marketing companies and money-multiplying entities.
However, the investigating agencies are not very keen on acting against
Amway for publishing the advertisements citing practical reasons, as
almost all news papers in the State carried the ads, thus making them
party to the violation.
As of now, the Crime Branch team is
ready with charge sheet in 35 cases out of the 106 registered against
another direct-marketing company Bizarre. Investigation has been
completed in 39 cases registered against Tycoon. Investigation report in
12 out of the 628 cases registered against Nano Excel has been
forwarded to the Police Headquarters as part of filing charge sheet,
according to sources.
1,000 cases
Nearly a thousand
cases have been registered against 14 such companies across Kerala since
December 2010. The cases being investigated cover dealings in which
people have been cheated of a total of around Rs.1,000 crore, according
to police records.
Besides Amway
Bizarre(106 cases)
Tycoon(39 cases)
Nano Excel(628 cases)
Way to Life (17 cases)
Unipay to You (44 cases)
Florenza (10 cases)
Visarev (10 cases)
RMP (26 cases)
Kasaragod Gramin Super Market (36 cases)
E-Capital Fund (9 cases)
MonaVie(one case)
Alga Royal Life(one case)
Sami Direct (one case)
are the other companies that have come under the scanner.
The State Police had initiated a probe against Amway in 2011. Even
though searches were made at nine centres of Amway at that time, the
company resumed its activities soon after. Another case was registered
this year on the basis of a complaint lodged by a tailor in Kozhikode
against a person who is alleged to be an agent of the direct-marketing
company. Investigations have just got under way in this instance. As
part of the new investigation, Delhi-based couple Sharadul Suresh Shroff
and Pallavi Suresh Shroff, directors of Amway, were also arraigned as
accused.
Transactions
The Crime Branch team is now
collecting and verifying documents of the executives engaged by the
company as part of its marketing effort and also examining the
transactions made through their bank accounts. Amway alone is learnt to
have done a business of Rs.43.4 crore in 2012, Rs.82 crore in 2011 and
Rs.93 crore in 2010.
Investigators have collected evidence showing transactions done by other companies during this period that include
Nano Excel (Rs.358 crore)
Tycoon (Rs.250 crore)
RMP (Rs.200 crore)
Bizarre (Rs.123 crore)
Way to Life (Rs.53 crore)
Florenza (Rs.12.60 crore)
MonaVie (Rs.11.79 crore)
Sami Direct (Rs.11 crore)
Visarev (Rs.61.58 lakh)
E-Capital Fund (Rs.27.72 lakh)
It is learnt that investigations against Bizarre, Nano Excel and Tycoon are in the final stages and charges will be filed soon.
The Hindu news
