Climb First Education in Powai, which is in the news for making false promises to prepare students for entrance exams for civil services, management studies and higher education abroad, has duped more than 11,000 students of around Rs 55 crore.
And, the number of victims is expected to rise, said the police.
The Powai police on Sunday produced director Manish Vargia (36), HR personnel Samuel Indgiri (26), manager Rohan Madiyar (27) and service provider Satyam Yadav (26) in court, and got their custody extended till April 5 as they want to take down the statements of maximum victims.
The Powai police will later hand them over to other police stations. At present, the four graduates are wanted by the police in Azad Maidan, Borivli, DN Nagar and Pune. The police will also soon arrest three women staffers, who allegedly abetted the crime.
They will also check the admission records of the coaching classes, bank account details of the four accused, and if they have duped students in other states too. Climb First Education has several branches in Mumbai and northern states.
On March 28, the police arrested Vargia, Indgiri, Madiyar and Yadav after Ghatkopar resident Mayur Chalke (22) filed a complaint that they had duped him of Rs70,000.
The gang, which advertised through social networking sites and phone-a-dial services, allegedly took Rs 30,000 to Rs 95,000 from each student for admissions. The accused use to tell students that deputy commissioner of police of Force 1 Vinay Rathod and his brother Arjunkumar are lecturers there. “But the Rathods told us that though they had visited the centre, they never gave any lectures and the accused used their names to lure students,” said assistant police inspector S N Bhandge.
On March 27, Chalke lodged a complaint claiming that he had enrolled in Climb First Education to prepare for the UPSC entrance exam. Chalke said, “I learnt about the classes in 2012 through an ad on a social networking site. But when I and three of my friends were told to attend a class for banking entrance exams we were shocked. When we asked for refund, they threatened us.”
Deputy commissioner of police (zone X) Mohankumar Dahikar supervised a team of senior inspector Bajirao Bhosale and Bhandge and arrested the four accused. Bhandge said, “They would convince students to attend banking classes for two to three days claiming that they would be moved to the UPSC entrance exam class when the fresh batch would start. But it was bogus. The victims are from Mumbai and other states. We expect the number to rise.”
