QNet India’s website likens Michael Ferreira to the Greek warrior Odysseus. The former three-time World Amateur Billiards Champion was a fierce fighter in his playing days, and earned the nickname Bombay Tiger. He was quite a combatant off the pool table as well—he rejected the Padma Shri in 1981 because he thought he should have got the more prestigious Padma Bhushan. Three years later he got the Padma Bhushan, after winning his third world championship.
Ferreira, 77, is currently fighting the biggest battle of his life. He has been in police custody for three months for his alleged involvement in a 0425-crore swindling scam. QNet is a Hong Kong-based multilevel marketing company. It operates in India through Vihaan Direct Selling, which was registered in Bengaluru in 2011. The police said Ferreira owned 80 per cent of Vihaan Direct Selling. It sold magnetic discs, watches, a host of herbal products and holiday schemes. The victims were allegedly coaxed into making investments from 030,000 to 010 lakh and then initiated into a ‘chain format’ that worked on the basis of commissions.
The police got the whiff of a scam when Gurpreet Anand, a resident of Andheri in Mumbai, filed a complaint at Oshiwara police station in April 2013 naming Ferreira and some others. He told the cops that he was duped into putting in thousands of rupees, which he lost “as there were no returns on the investments made”. The Enforcement Directorate and Mumbai Police’s economic offences wing swung into action when some 80 complaints were received against Ferreira, QNet and Vihaan.
According to Mumbai Police, QNet’s business model was untenable and the ideas was to hoodwink gullible people. Several portals and websites belonging to the company have been blocked by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) after a court order.
Ferreira, who was arrested last September, has been booked under the Prize, Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978, and section 173(8) of the Criminal Procedure Code, for cheating and criminal conspiracy to defraud. Ferreira’s former daughter-in-law Susan Chatterjee also is an accused in the case. A police officer said Ferreira’s wife and two children had monetarily benefited from the scam. The family has been avoiding the media and social interactions ever since the scam was unearthed.
The charge sheet filed by the economic offences wing of Mumbai Police against Ferreira and 30 others in December runs into more than 60,000 pages, but is far from complete. “The trial in the case is nowhere in sight at this point in time,” said Ferreira’s lawyer Suddatta Patil. “And, given the nature of the charge sheet filed by Mumbai Police, much of the probe needs to be carried out.”
