Solar powered con

• City doctors, industrialists enticed to invest in fraudulent solar scheme
• Good returns promised for 25 years; network operated through agents  

Mysore/Mysuru: An elaborate and a well-organised network of fraudsters is operating in Mysuru that has duped many people including doctors, industrialists and entrepreneurs by promising good returns if they invest in Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) Phase III that is meant to install Grid-connected Solar Power Plants. The scam runs up to several crores of rupees and the conned persons have now approached the Police. 

The fraudster network contacts the rich and the influential asking them to sign Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) and collects crores of rupees as an investment opportunity in such solar power projects and they are told that the projects belong to Central Government Departments like the NTPC (National Thermal Power Corporation) Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Limited.

Not to evoke any suspicion and also to instil trust, the fraudsters did not take cash but asked the gullible investor to issue cheques or DD in the name of the Government Department itself. But the creative fraudsters had registered companies with names that sounded very similar to Central Government Departments and the investors while writing the cheque did not realise that they were issuing cheques and DDs in favour of companies that only sounded like Government Departments but were not.

Investors were made to believe that they will get a return of Rs. 9 per unit from NTPC and assured them that they would handle the whole project on a turn-key basis. They also convinced the investors that this solar farm would be set up on a 25-acre land to be leased for 25 years at Chikkalli village, Challakere taluk in Chitradurga district.  

While entering into the MoU, the parties were promised that Mega Solar Energy Plant will be installed at Challakere taluk along with other companies and the solar project would be registered in their respective names. 

Once the MoU was finalised, the conmen promised the parties that they would install, operate and maintain the solar project and produce electricity to sell the same to NTPC. The assured returns of Rs. 9 per unit would be credited directly to the bank accounts. The parties were told that it would take Rs. 3 to produce a unit of electricity from the Solar Plant and the same would be sold to NTPC — under National Solar Mission — at a higher margin and profits.

Fake documents: According to complainants, fake documents were produced to establish that the 25-acre land had already been acquired and only the Solar Plant works had to be taken up for which the investment was required. The conmen then assured the parties that uninterrupted money would flow to the bank accounts for 25 years.  

After the DD or cheque was issued, fake documents, photocopies of agreement letters with the NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Limited were given to the rich and the influential so that there was no doubt about entering into a deal with the Centre. Assurance was given to the parties that the more the investment, more the returns. 

Money taken in stages

Documents — from Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (Grid Solar Power Division), Government of India — along with provisional sanction letter were placed before the parties relating to the establishment of 10 MW Grid-connected SPV (Special Purpose Vehicles) Power Plant at Chitradurga. 

Documents and Police complaint copies in possession with Star of Mysore reveal that a minimum of Rs. 2.50 crore was taken from the parties in different stages after producing documents to establish permission, acceptance, NoC, sanctioning fees, etc. 

Payments through cheques and DDs were collected at several intervals in the name of securing approvals from the NTPC and the money was collected in the form of a loan of Rs. 2.5 crore which would be repaid within a stipulated period along with the guaranteed addition to this (loan) amount. Parties were told that the expenses towards the project would be recovered along with the actual maintenance charges every month for 25 years.

As the fraudsters had already opened several bank accounts in the name of shell companies that sounded similar to Central Government Departments, the parties making payments did not suspect any wrong-doing and issued cheques and DDs.

For instance, payments were made to ‘Solar Energy Corporation’ (SEC) that is a shell company instead of the actual Central Government Department that is Solar Energy Corporation of India Limited (SECIL). 

Like this, cheques and DDs were drawn in favour of ‘MNRE’ while the original Government Department is ‘Ministry of New and Renewable Energy’. If the payment is actually made to Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, the name should have been written in full instead of abbreviation ‘MNRE’.

Agent network

The fraudsters reportedly operated through agents and the agents were promised a 30 percent commission of the total investment made by their client. Before entering into MoUs, the parties were told that it would take months to establish the solar plant and there would be no question of immediate returns. Believing this, the investors did not ask many questions and remained patient and went on issuing cheques and DDs from time to time. 

Scammed

The investors realised that there was something amiss when the work of the solar farm, which was supposed to have begun a while back, had not started. On further investigation they realised that no work had started at all and there was no information about the location. Apart from this, the investors also realised that the ‘provisional sanction letter’ that they were shown saying that was issued by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy was fake so also the ‘power purchase agreement’. Soon they also learnt that the accounts that they had sent money to were not real Government Departments but accounts with similar sounding names.

In Mysuru, the conmen were operating through agents since the past one-and-a-half years. While one complainant has complained Rs. 2.5 crore as loss, sources say if other investors were considered, it is about Rs. 27 crore which has been collected between January and March 2020. Now some of the investors have approached the Police.

Petition received; we will probe, says DCP

Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Geetha Prasanna told Star of Mysore this morning that a doctor in city has given a petition that states that he has been cheated of Rs. 2.50 crore by a solar company, assuring good returns in the Solar Power Plant under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission. 

“Yesterday we have received the petition and we will begin investigating from today. We will summon both the parties to enquire the veracity of the petition. We will not register a case in the event of the parties reaching a compromise settlement. But if indeed the cheating has happened, we will book an FIR,”  Geetha Prasanna said.

“The jurisdiction of the case is Alanahalli and the cheques and DDs have been issued from various banks in Nazarbad limits and even Bengaluru. We will have to take these factors into consideration while booking a case,” she said.