Mumbai, December 15
The Mumbai police is on the lookout for two brothers whose SMS scam had duped hundreds to the tune of Rs 25 crore.
The police said the two brothers, Jayanand (36) and Jayaraja Nadar (28), took out newspaper advertisements, promising to double the amount of investors, who were asked to deposit Rs 500 each in the bank account of their company.
Claiming to be agents of the American Jigsaw Data Corporation, the brothers had asked their victims to enrol more members for a commission.
Most of the agents did not receive their commission.
The agents were now being forced to pay off the victims from their pockets.
The brothers took out newspaper advertisements in September to promote the scheme.
By November, they had collected at least Rs 25 crore and vanished.
The police said the actual figure could be higher as more and more victims were coming forward to register complaints.
Explaining the Nadars' modus operandi, the police said they invited cellphone users to enrol in the promotion scheme for just Rs 500.
In return, they were sent text messages, promoting a number of products of their company, www.getpaid4sms.com.
Members were required to forward these SMS message to their contacts to rope in more people to earn their commission.
Since the initial amount was just Rs 500, a large number of people fell for the scam in just two months.
The scam came to light when cheques issued by the Nadars’ company bounced.
Last fortnight, one of the agents who were issued a cheque for Rs 21 lakh filed a police complaint after it bounced.
Soon several agents had filed police complaints.
Releasing information to the media, the police expected more victims to come forward.
The brothers’ website had been taken off, with the domain name up for sale.
