-The Hindustan Times The sorry plight of thousands of small savers duped by a deposit-collecting firm in West Bengal is, perhaps, symptomatic of a wider malaise that runs deep in the Indian economy. What if a company asked you to invest Rs. 200,000 and promised to give you Rs. 8,000 a month for five years and a swanky sedan at the end of the fifth year? What if a company asked...
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Court takes on ‘deposit’ firms -Pankaj Sarma
-The Telegraph Guwahati: Gauhati High Court has taken up a suo motu PIL against the Calcutta-based Saradha Group and similar deposit collecting companies for allegedly duping scores of investors in Assam of their hard-earned money. Official sources said the high court recently took up the PIL (15/2013) after taking cognisance of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) general secretary and RTI activist Akhil Gogoi's letter to Chief Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel. Akhil had alleged...
More »Bengal’s Bonzi shell cracks up -Sambit Saha
-The Telegraph The "Bonzi" edifice, Bengal's version of the fraudulent Ponzi scheme that conned US investors a century ago, is shaking at its foundations. The panic set off by Saradha defaulting on payments has spread to similar schemes run by other firms and triggered protests and attacks on company offices in several parts of the state. These schemes' mostly small-time rural investors have begun to panic about the safety of their hard-earned...
More »Cobrapost sting: RBI gets stricter on money laundering, banks ask customers to resubmit IDs -Sangita Mehta
-The Economic Times MUMBAI: If you get a phone call from your long-time banker asking you to resubmit your name and address proofs, don't be surprised or irritated. It is the fallout of the Reserve Bank going beyond the cobrapost.com expose on unethical practices of banks, forcing them to go back to the drawing boards to weed out bogus and wrong documentation that allowed many people to open accounts and launder...
More »Cobrapost sting: Staff at ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank may have violated KYC norms, says RBI
-The Economic Times MUMBAI: The employees at ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank may have violated know-your-customer norms and helped clients evade taxes, the Reserve Bank of India's investigation has found. "Banks opened current account based on power of attorney without KYC," ET Now reported citing people familiar with the report. "Banks gave cash advances for gold purchases", which is a violation of norms, it said. The central bank and the...
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