Hyderabad: The Economic Offences Wing, Hyderabad, arrested two individuals from Pune on Friday, July 31, on charges of Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) financial fraud.

The arrested have been identified as Padamati Surender Reddy, 55, a private employee and Parwinder Singh Fingh, 37, working in HSBC.

The arrests were made following a police complaint by two families – Ramadevi Gundeti and her husband Srinivas Aemula, and Satheesh Reddy and Pavani – who alleged they were cheated of nearly Rs 28 lakh. Surender Reddy and three others lured them into investing in ‘Vihaan Direct Selling (India) Pvt. Ltd,’ in return for high returns and a direct-selling venture.

According to police, in August last year, Surender Reddy arranged a meeting at a hotel in Hyderabad and introduced them to Parwinder Singh as a senior executive. Singh said that QNET is an emerging international e-commerce and product-based direct-selling business and convinced the families to invest.

They took personal loans from Bajaj Finance and invested close to Rs 28 lakh, i.e. Rs 14.41 lakh each.

The families discovered email IDs created without their knowledge and were constantly asked to recruit more members. They realised they were being cheated when they sought a refund and cancellation of their membership, but got empty answers.

They lodged a complaint and investigations began. Parwinder Singh and Surender Reddy were arrested from Pune and subsequently sent to judicial remand.

Two more are absconding. Efforts are on to ban