Case Against Actors Shreyas Talpade, Alok Nath Over Investment Scam

A police case has been filed against Bollywood actors Shreyas Talpade and Alok Nath on Wednesday in connection with an alleged fraud in Haryana's Sonipat. The actors were the brand ambassadors of a credit cooperative society, which has been accused of cheating thousands of people in the name of investment.

Human Welfare Credit Cooperative Society Limited has been accused of cheating, fraud, forgery and breach of contractual obligations through financial schemes in a First Information Report (FIR). The FIR has been filed against 13 people, including the actors.

The cooperative society started its operations in many states, including Haryana, on September 16, 2016. Its main functions were to provide savings schemes like Fixed Deposit (FD) and Recurring Deposits (RD).

The company presented itself as a reliable and safe financial institution in the beginning and did extensive publicity to attract and gain the confidence of investors, complainant Vipul Kumar alleged.

Currently, all the officials connected with the organisation are missing.

"Our hard-earned money has been swindled in a planned manner by these society owners. This is a case of organized fraud," Mr Kumar said.

How The Credit Cooperative Society Operated

The society ran an incentive-based scheme to add new investors. Under this scheme, the person who added more investors was to be given additional incentives based on the amount of investment.

The firm's model was based on multi-level marketing, which focussed on rapidly increasing the number of investors. Investors started adding their acquaintances, friends and relatives to the cooperative society and as a result, a large network of investors was formed. Agents were trained by the firm and they were successful in winning the trust of other investors who deposited a large amount of money in the society, the complainant alleged.

For the first seven years (from 2016 to 2023), the schemes operated smoothly and the organisation made timely payments.

In 2023, serious problems began to arise in the functioning of the cooperative society as the incentives to the agents were stopped and the maturity amount payment to the investors also started getting disrupted.

When investors and agents approached the officials regarding these problems, they were given false assurances. The officials allegedly pinned the cause behind the delay on "system upgradation".

Gradually, the organisation owners ended all contact and the investors did not get their hard-earned money back, the FIR stated.

'Misuse Of KYC Documents'

The owners of the Human Welfare Credit Cooperative Society obtained the KYC documents and other necessary personal information from the investors and agents for operational purposes. These documents contained identity, address and banking details.

The complainant now suspects that the document may have been "misused".

"Fake bank accounts can be opened through them. These documents can be misused in any other fraudulent activity. They can also be used to trap investors in legal cases," Mr Kumar alleged.