Sapnanil Das, the owner of Trading For A Living (TFAL), has been arrested by the police in Guwahati after hours of interrogation for allegedly taking funds from people in the name of investing in equities markets.
This comes amid heightened interest of authorities in the wake of investment scams surfacing across Assam. DB Stock Broking's Dipankar Barman, and another individual named Bishal Phukan are involved in the scam.
Sapnanil has been accused of raking in people's money to invest in the stock market through online trading platforms. He was detained by the police from Guwahati's Beltola on Monday.
Notably, Sapnanil Das, the proprietor of TFAL, claims to be a teacher aiming to spread his financial knowledge and teaching people to invest in the markets.
"TFAL is a community where I teach people of assam about financial market,the goal is to build a better community of trading and investing and to prove that trading is not gambling,this community will help everyone,so that we can grow together and get learning about financial market in a very easy way," reads his website.
His arrest comes after Bishal Phukan's, a youth who took money from people to invest in the stock market and promised fixed returns.
The 22-year-old was detained by Dibrugarh police on Monday after it was reported that he went into hiding. He is accused of accumulating several crores of rupees from around 200 people in the name of investing in stock markets and promising fixed returns of up to 30 per cent or more — a practice that market regulator SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) warns against.
Phukan used to deliver notarized documents to people from whom he took money, mentioning the details including the promise of fixed returns to add legitimacy to his operations. He would take deposits to his bank account and use them to invest in the equities market.
As reported previously, the accused promised fixed returns to people in 60 working days. However, he has allegedly not returned the principal amount so far to the investors, only paying back a section of the promised returns.
On the other hand, Phukan reportedly used the deposits for personal gains, living a lavish life and registering as many as four companies to his name. Frequent foreign trips, expensive cars, and more came from the money people handed him hoping for big returns.
Bishal Phukan has been actively investing in the markets since 2020. He calls himself an industrialist and previously refuted media reports on his practices as malicious. However, the authorities took note of his actions and detained him in an operation in Dibrugarh.
