Amway area manager in Kerala in judicial custody

Action against multi-level marketing firms

Area manager of Amway in the State P.M. Rajkumar, 29, who was arrested following searches at the offices and godowns of Amway in Thrissur, Kozhikode, and Kannur, was produced before the Judicial First Class Magistrate, Thamarassery, on Saturday and remanded in judicial custody for 14 days.

The Crime Branch (Economic Offences), Kozhikode, team, which is spearheading the drive against multi-level marketing companies in the State, had arrested Rajkumar on Friday night.

The investigating team led by P.A. Valsan, Superintendent of Police, Crime Branch (EO), Kozhikode, decided to arraign the Delhi-based couple Sharadul Suresh Shroff and Pallavi Suresh Shroff, both directors of Amway, as accused in the case.

The drive was triggered by a complaint filed by Vishalakshi, a tailor in Kozhikode. It is expected that more complaints would be registered, leading to more arrests.

It is learnt that Rajkumar maintained the company’s official line that it was doing legal business within the guidelines approved by the State government in 2011 for direct selling companies. However, the investigating team is charging that the company making it mandatory for its distributors to purchase products to get returns out of investment amounted to violation of the guidelines.

ALGA ROYAL LIFE MARKETING:

Also, the Crime Branch team is finalising the procedures to issue lookout notices on eight directors of Alga Royal Life Marketing Company, which was closed down for violation of Prize Chits and Money Circulation Scheme (Banning) Act.

All the directors of the company went into hiding after the case. One of the senior officials in the team said that even though the company offered products against investments made during initial stages, towards the later period it was directly canvassing investment after promising double the returns. The company used to distribute products marketed by Maharishi Herbals.

The business model outlined in the website of the company offers five streams of income for those joining as distributors, which keeps multiplying depending on the number of new distributors brought into the network by them.

Getting at least one of the directors in custody was essential to gauge the exact spread of the network, as it could only by cracked through the transactions made online. Without interrogating any of the directors, the administrative rights to go into the records online could not be secured. The investigating team has decided to wait for it rather than seeking help of the Cyber Cell to crack the website.