Dubai,
The Dubai Misdemeanours Court on Sunday has sentenced Two Goans to 517 years in jail for running a fake investment racket worth more than $13 million in Dubai. Court Found Sydney Lemos and his senior accounts specialist Ryan de Souza guilty and pronounced the verdict today.
Lemos’ firm Exential Group works as a foreign exchange trading firm who had promised to pay its clients 120 percent annual returns on their investment but failed to do so causing losses to the tune of 50 million dirhams to their clients. On account of the number of complaints received by the duped customers, the office was sealed by the Department of Economic Development (DED), Dubai in July 2016.
After an investigation, it was found that the company initially paid the due profit to its investors but after the scheme collapsed in March 2016 the payment stopped and the office had to be shut down.
According to a local news channel, “Lemos was arrested in January last year and was under investigation for ‘criminal allegations’, while de Souza was arrested by officials while he was trying to leave the country. Lemos’ wife is also believed to be a part of the fraud and had been named by investigating officers. She managed to flee the country and is believed to have returned to India.”
Many investors, like a Goan working in Dubai, believes “I lost 400,000 dirhams (around Rs 70 Lakh). I got good returns initially which I reinvested. It was a bad investment, I haven’t filed a complaint. I believe Sydney Lemos was trying to do something different but it backfired on us. If he was a crook he could have fled the country,”
