4 January, Kathmandu. Dinesh (name changed) from Elam was active in share trading till a year ago. Five months ago, he thought of taking training related to shares after the continuous losses in the shares.
He used to search for various information related to shares on his mobile phone. At the same time, he saw a sponsored advertisement on Facebook. Where it was written, ‘Share market training.’
Dinesh went to the training office at Babarmahal after being told that he would be taught share trading by an experienced trainer with 14 years of experience. The advertisements placed in the office also said, ‘After completing this course, you can easily analyze all the world’s stock, commodity, forex, etc. markets and trade.’
It was said that you can learn even for 15 days until you don’t know. However, only the negative aspects of share trading were mentioned in the admission class from the next day.
“On the first day, he said a little bit about shares. From the next day, he started teaching why it is not beneficial by saying that it will turn over, this will happen, that will happen”, he told Online Khabar.
According to him, in the beginning it was like saying ‘Hola ta ni’. From the third day, all stocks left and went to the class of commodity market. As taught to Dinesh, commodity market is an online transaction based on the price of gold, silver, copper, gas, oil, etc., just like the stock market.
“When I started putting in a lot of money, I started losing, when I said it would increase, it would decrease, when I said it would decrease, it would increase”, says a young victim.
Dinesh said, “They showed greed by saying that there would be no risk like in shares and that money would be earned”.
At that time, they were told that the commodity market was under the Nepal Securities Board. In the same belief, they started depositing money in the account of Sunil Shrestha, owner of the broker company Money Spell Investment Pvt.
Dinesh says, ‘Only one/one thousand rupees was asked to open the account, 15 thousand, 35 thousand rupees were taken for the training’, Dinesh says, ‘After giving the money to open the account, they were asked to download the mobile app called Makes Nepal by giving the client code number.’
He says that gold, silver, copper, oil and gas are bought and sold through the application. He says that Shrestha also sends the information about when the material increases and decreases in the virtual market to the WhatsApp group he created.
‘We used to click on buying and selling based on what Sunil said would be profit or loss’, Dinesh added, ‘He said at that time that the commission goes to Nepal’s securities board and TDS goes to Nepal government’s revenue.’
At the beginning of the business, Dinesh and his friends also got some benefits. “However, when I started putting in a lot of money, I started losing money, when I said it would increase, it would decrease, when I said it would decrease, it would increase,” says another victim, Ravin (name changed). They said it happened.’ However, the victims say that millions drowned when Sunil did as he said.
“We used to buy and sell even thinking that we could take the risk to this extent, but we kept losing money, he kept adding money”, he says, “When we asked him later, he said that the market turned bad and would rise again.” But, it never helped.’
The price of gold, silver, copper and other metals should be fixed on the basis of fixed prices in the foreign market. According to the experts, it is also natural to have a certain percentage increase in it. However, the victims say that the prices of these items have been reduced without any basis.
After incurring a lot of losses, they asked Shrestha for a business statement. But they didn’t get it. After not getting the details, the victims went to the Securities Board to clarify. ‘It was then that I found out that all this is prohibited in Nepal, they have been cheating with the board’, says Ravin, ‘TDS is not deducted either.’
When I reached the trading club where Shrestha is the owner, the office was also closed on 29 October. “He would not pick up the phone when he contacted us, sometimes he would hang up, he would not even reply to the messages, even if he picked up the phone, even if he turned it off for days, he would start yelling at us,” the victims say.
After that, they went to the Valley Crime Investigation Office of the police to file a complaint. The office sent it back saying that it was a case that Nepal Rastra Bank would look into. Later, the victims reached District Police Complex, Kathmandu.
The victims say that they had to work hard to explain this to the police officers in the premises as well. Later, the police registered a complaint. According to them, five people have been reported to the police. More complaints are coming. There are more than 30 thousand users of Makes Nepal App in Nepal alone. The victims say that more than 37 million rupees have been cheated even from those who filed a complaint.
According to Chief Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Bharat Bahadur Bohra of District Police Complex, Kathmandu, four people have been arrested based on the complaint of the victim.
Among those arrested are Sunil Shrestha, owner of Spell Investment Pvt Ltd and Trading Club, his wife Kanchan Shrestha, Chief Executive Officer of Mercantile Exchange Nepal Limited (MEX) Jitesh Surendran and its spokesperson.
On the website of Makes Nepal, Surendran has been given the ‘Nepal Brand Leadership Award’ by former Minister of State for Finance Uday Shamsher Rana in 2017. On the website, Surendran is also said to be the Vice President of the South ASEAN Federation of Exchanges (CEF).
SSP Bohra said that permission has been obtained from the district court to detain the four persons including Surendran for investigation of the offenses related to fraud, criminal treachery and criminal benefit (extortion) under the Criminal Code. The police have prepared to prosecute it under the charge of organized crime.
According to another officer involved in the investigation, it has been found that this company has kept 370 million rupees in a fixed deposit account in one bank only. Research officers say that they take up to 75 percent of the amount collected from users only from commission.
A Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) of District Police Complex, Kathmandu says, ‘This is a very big fraud racket.’ SSP Bohra said that the investigation is still going on and he is preparing to hold a press conference to give information.
In the first week of January 2076, Vinay Lamichhane, a teacher of management faculty at Mangalodaya campus in Chandragiri, committed suicide after drowning in debt from the commodity market.
Research showed that it was the investment in the commodity market that forced him and his family to commit suicide. He was the 13th broker in the exchange company Nepal Derivative Exchange Pvt Ltd.
