Torres’ company Platinum Hern Pvt Ltd, accused of defrauding several billion people, is suspected of managing their social media accounts from abroad to delay investigations and mislead investors, said officials of the Economic Offenses Wing.
The company claims that it will soon return money to investors through its Instagram account.
Torres has been posting photos, videos and CCTV footage of their employees—CEO Mohamed Tausif Reyaz alias John Carter, director Survesh Surve and accountant Abhishek Gupta—on their Instagram account and -website, claiming that they are responsible for fraud, robbery and treason. in their stores. They also put up posters of Reyaz and Gupta in these forums, announcing a reward of Rs 2 lakh to anyone who can provide information about them.
All these three people thought that they were the culprits. When Surve was arrested by the police in Shivaji Park, Reyaz was wanted and the Guptas voluntarily surrendered to the police and offered help. He said he prepared and submitted the auditor’s report to the company’s management on December 26 and saw them end up, he and Surve and Reyaz, writing emails to the authorities.
The alleged callers also said that the CCTV network of Torres has a server in an office in Lower Parel and is operated from other countries, mainly Ukraine.
The chief officer of the Economic Offenses Unit said that they also suspect that the suspected company manages their social media accounts from abroad and they are investigating this way.
The Torres company has so far only sent an email and no senior employee or director of the company has gone to the police to clarify the facts of the allegations or explain the company’s business operations and revenue stream.
The EOW turned a blind eye to the complaint of a Dharavi social activist
Dharavi-based social activist Shashikant Kawale said he lodged a complaint with the EOW about alleged irregularities at the Torres offices in October 2024.
“I told them that the government takes seven years to double the investors’ money, how can this company double its money in just 13 months?
I met the head of the investigation and the head of the crime control unit and told them that it is a big fraud and the police should seriously inquire about it. I also told them that in the first week of January, the crooks might run away. However, I have received information that no action is being taken against the suspects,” said Kawale.
This activist also said that he also called the Shivaji Park police on this matter, but they did not take his complaint seriously. Shivaji Park police have already been criticized for not acting on this information about Torres’ alleged fraud in June last year.
When contacted, the senior officer of EOW said that the activist went to EOW in December and assured that he would bring several victims, who lost money in this scam, to report the matter, but he did not attend the EOW offices. Later, these officers were busy with police officers on Christmas Eve and New Years.
One Indian and two foreigners have been arrested by the Mumbai police in this case and 11 other foreigners, mostly Ukrainians, have been named as suspects in the case. According to the EOW, so far around 3700 investors have approached the police claiming that they have lost Rs 57 crore. The police, after a search, seized valuable assets, including cash and jewelery worth approximately R20 crore.
2 safes found in a search of Torres’s Kandivali office
EOW teams searched Kandivali’s office in Torres on Monday and seized gold worth Rs 14 lakh, silver worth Rs 21 lakh, some documents, vouchers given to investors, laptops, computers, driving pens, iPads among other items. In addition, two large safes were found in the office and could not be opened. The police contacted the manufacturer of these safes to help them open them, said police sources.
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