Who is Amber Dalal?Advisor who defrauded hundreds of people, including celebrities

Dalal was arrested in Uttarakhand after 12 days on the run.

Mumbai:

A Mumbai-based investment adviser who was on the run for 12 days after defrauding more than 600 investors of over Rs 380 crore has been arrested in Uttarakhand. Many celebrities are his clients, including actors Anu Kapoor and Deepak Sharma.

Dalal, the owner of Ritz Consulting Services in the affluent Lokhandwala area on the outskirts of Andheri, promised investors a monthly return of 1.6 to 2 percent by investing their money in commodities. Different investors have entrusted him with amounts as low as Rs 5 lakh and as high as tens of millions of rupees.

Mumbai police sources said he had been running the company for 15 years and had paid taxes. NDTV spoke to some of his clients, including Mr Kapoor and Mr Sharma, who said Dalal had been offering them returns, including during the coronavirus pandemic.

However, Dalal disappeared on March 14, and his family said they did not know where he was. His investors, many of them elderly, began to panic, having entrusted him with their life savings and relying on the interest on their investments to support their families. Some investors complained to the police.

Police sources said Dalal was traced to Dehradun in Uttarakhand and arrested there on Tuesday night. “He was detained and has been remanded in police custody,” said Sangramsingh Nishandar, deputy commissioner of police, economic crimes branch.

“Keep changing hotels”

During his 12 days on the run, Dalal took several measures to avoid being discovered. Sources said he is suspected of having traveled to other states before arriving in Uttarakhand and changed hotels several times within a short period of time to avoid being traced.

Sources said that since Dalal has been operating in Lokhandwala for a long time and has a lot of people from the film industry there, he has many celebrities among his clients. “Mr Kapoor and Mr Sharma are the only two high-profile individuals who have come forward so far, but there are many more,” an official said.

While investors hope to get at least their principal back following Dalal’s arrest, police are yet to determine how the money was actually used. They are also trying to find out how he has managed to deliver returns so far, and the circumstances that prompted him to stop doing so and try to disappear.