Crores of rupees have disappeared! Many investors, including Indians, are in trouble
A brokerage firm in the United Arab Emirates has shut down without any notice. The company, named 'Gulf First Commercial Brokers', has embezzled crores of rupees from funds by defrauding investors.
The brokerage firm had two offices in that tower in Dubai. It is said that they used to manage the company's operations with about 40 employees in suites 302 and 305. They used to contact customers from home and abroad and give them attractive offers for their investments. Customers showed interest in investing quickly in those attractive offers. The firm used to attract investments by showing the lure of deposits in foreign currencies.
Several Indians were among the investors. The fraudsters lured the investors by communicating with them in their native language. The Indians also included expatriates from Kerala and Karnataka. Two expatriates from Kerala, Mohammed and Fayaz Poil, agreed to the attractive offer and invested $75,000 in the fake company.
Initially, the company showed a small profit to gain the trust of the customers. Investors were able to withdraw the dividends. Fayaz said that a manager of the company used to speak to him in his mother tongue and offered him big profits if he invested. The Indian fell into that trap and invested a huge amount of money. He lost about two crore rupees.
Gulf First Commercial Brokers used to invest money through an online platform called Sigma One Capital. Later, questions started to arise about the legitimacy of this platform. Complaints from customers started to be filed against the company. However, all these complaints were dismissed by the company. They claimed that the company was registered in St. Lucia in the Caribbean. The fraudulent company said that Sigma had an office in Masala Tower in Dubai.
Police have launched an investigation into Gulf First and Sigma One after receiving complaints from hundreds of investors. The investigation revealed that Sigma One Capital withdrew money from depositors without any approval from the Dubai Financial Services Securities and Commodities Authority.
A man named Mohammed had invested $50,000 (42 lakh rupees in Indian currency) in the company. He said, "The company's employees used to use the names Gulf First and Sigma One together to trap customers. The company's employees would tell the depositors that Sigma One was part of their organization."
This is not the first time such fraud has occurred in the UAE. In March, two companies were accused of embezzling billions of dirhams (local currency). The dubious platforms allegedly called customers and lured them into investing in the same way, promising them security in online trading.
