Ahmedabad:Gujarat government has decided to hand over the probe of sensational over Rs 200 crore online advertisement/investment scam involving Vinay Shah to the state crime and also constitute an SIT for the same instead of the one constituted by the Ahmedabad police.

MoS Home Pradipsinh Jadeja informed this.
He said that as the CID crime was the competent authority to probe such fraud under the Gujarat Protection of Interest of Depositors (in Financial Establishments) Act, 2003, the state government has decided to hand it over to it.

‘The CID crime was also investigating other such cases and has the authority under the act to even auction the property of the accused to recover the amount and distribute it among those cheated. An SIT under a DIG rank official and also including SP and DySP rank officials would also be constituted. It would be ensured that the matter is also taken up by a special SIT court and spl public prosecutor for fast disposal,’ he said.

Terming the letter of Shah in which he has alleged several police officials of being the beneficiary of his scam, as absurd, the minister said that Shah had fled abroad after writing such absurd letter. The police officials whose names were wrongly mentioned in the letter have moved court for defamation suits.

He also appealed people to not to get trapped in such ponzi schemes promising to double the money in a very short period of time.

Notably, earlier Commissioner of Police of Ahmedabad A K Singh had constituted an SIT for the same in which at least 3 IPS officers were included.
Shah had opened an office in Thaltej area of Ahmedabad and allegedly duped numerous people by making them invest in his scheme which claimed to double or more than double different fixed sums collected in the name of running advertisements on two websites created by his company. It also used to give username and password to those who pay a certain amount and claimed to pay also for seeing the advertisement a certain number of times.
So far cases in Vastrapur and Thaltej police stations have been lodged against Vinay, his agents in this connection.
Absconding Vinay had also made several investors go for sponsored foreign trips.
Allegations were leveled that he had nexus with police and politicians.

DeshGujarat