Fraud / Scam Offline and Online

We see that there are always rackets and scams going on wherein touts, agents, middlemen or criminals posing as such, try to dupe innocent, uneducated or misinformed people with big promises, flashy business ideas, tempting "quick money" schemes or easy loans. In such cases, the con men or criminals are organised in a racket sometimes with deliberate negligence by employees of financial institutions or businesses, and they take money from people and then go absconding or simply refuse to return money using either threats or alternatively, legal agreements which are signed hastily.

In such cases, although you have the right to complain to the Police as an Indian citizen, the police may not entertain the complaint if the amount is relatively small, say below Rs.1 lakh or if you have no evidence to implicate the criminal or if the dealings were done by word-of-mouth and on trust basis only.

In such situations, we can help identify and locate the criminal, possibly interact with them and extract evidence or a confession on the basis of which you can file a valid and strong complaint against such criminals.

Examples of such scams and fraunds are:

• Small business / chit fund scam - some core members or one member of a chit fund or "bhisi group" may suddenly take a lot of money on false promises like lucrative investments and abscond from the city.
• Online OTP scam - criminals operating online payment fraud schemes having access to databases of personal information of members of the public at large, may pose as Bank or Govt officials and ask your details or OTP sent to your mobile and then use that to transfer money to their accounts and then en-cash that money and abscond. They sometimes operate from distant states of the country and may also induce you to install virus or malware on your computer or phone so as to hack your online accounts and steal all your money through online banking, credit card and other such means.
• Using promises of giving you quick and easy loans, advertised by posting numbers on pamphlets on bus, newspapers and railway stations and in train compartments, some criminal middlemen try to tempt people into seeking loans, but misrepresent the amount or procedure steps, and then take a huge part of the loan which is secured on the victim's documents and abscond, or refuse to answer the phone.
• Some persons who are your acquaintances or friends either newly made or introduced through a mutual acquaintance, ask for a loan on friendly basis and then refuse to return the money or cut all contacts or abscond
• A group of people posing as placement agents promise unemployed youth a great future in a distant metropolitan city or international placements like in Gulf countries, South East Asian countries, Western countries. Often the companies offering jobs are fraudulent, the process and papers are fraudulent and huge amounts are taken citing costs in foreign currency for flight fare, visas, work permits and papers. Upon the victim actually trying to board the flight or get a visa, they suddenly find that the authorities have decided that they have produced fraudulent papers and instead of a job or flight to another country, they are faced with criminal charges for breaking immigration or similar laws and can face prison time. This is in addition to losing their huge financial investments. The agents meanwhile have either absconded or they suppress their own identity and therefore have no legal liability leaving the victim to pay the price for their crime.
• Some e-commerce platforms who do not due proper seller verification end up promoting fraud sellers who display proper products such as mobiles, computers, laptops, on their web page on such sites, but actually ship dummy or broken products or sometimes even stones and rocks. Such fraudulent sellers are banned from responsible e-commerce platforms but some criminals plan their activities well so that their last batch of deliveries contain only defective products or complete rubbish contents after which they abscond or change identity and lay low for some time or choose another e-commerce site to carry out fraud from.
• In addition to these, there are other common frauds such as promised investment in shares, property, flats, land, gold jewellery and other such valuable items where the criminal shows a valid sample product and collects huge deposits and then absconds leaving no trace. Sometimes they ship artificial jewellery or sell the same land or property to multiple people and then abscond.

In addition, online platforms are used to sell illegal products like narcotics, prescriptions drugs without prescription, unlicensed sales, expired products, adulterated goods, counterfeit consumer goods, illegal substances, banned chemicals, banned products from wildlife and such others. We can help identify, locate, gather evidence against and prepare a solid airtight case against such platforms or sellers.

It is important to note that in these cases, we can assist at every stage of investigation and legal procedure, but we cannot become a party in such complaints and these will have to be fought under your name. We may be able to connect you with other individuals or NGOs that fight such cases but only after our investigation is completed.

In addition, we will not indulge in abusive behavior or violence of any kind. Hence please do not approach us or ask us to employ muscle men or bouncers to cause abuse, injury or harm to anyone. Our skills are for intelligent and legal investigations only.