₹1,046 crore Hijau scam: Police seek public help to nab accused

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has sought public help in securing the absconding accused of the firm- Hijau associates, who have cheated more than 14,000 persons and has released details of them along with their photographs.

Police said that those providing information on the wanted persons will be suitably rewarded.

EOW had already issued a Red Corner Notice (RCN) against Alexander and Mahalakshmi, managing directors of Hijau associates, who are suspected to have fled to a foreign country.

Apart from Alexander and Mahalakshmi, EOW has sought information on thirteen other executives of Hijau - Inaya, Govindarajulu, Sujatha, Ramesh, Surendra Kumar, Muthukumaran, Muralidharan, Samisekar, Ramraj, Jayakumar, Jeyasanjulu, Durairaj and Preeja.

All the information will be kept confidential and will be rewarded accordingly.

Public can contact EOW at the numbers - 044-22504311 and 044-22504332.

Public can also send information about the accused to the mail id- adspeowhijau@gmail.com.

According to Police, Hijau associates was headquartered in Chennai and had sent their executives across the state luring investors by conducting meets in luxury hotels in their district.

The investors were told that they would get a 15 per cent return on their investment every month, but in actuality, they were running a Ponzi scheme.

After investors realised that they have been cheated, hundreds of them approached the police across the state after which, in November last year, the EOW registered a case under several sections of IPC including 420 (cheating and sections of the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes (BUDS) act and sections of the Tamil Nadu Protection of Interests of Depositors (TNPID) Act.

So far, police had arrested ten persons and six directors of the company had surrendered before the court. Police have also freezed 162 bank accounts of those associated with Hijau, containing Rs 14.47 crore.