Hid in 3 states, travelled by bus, switched 6 hotels: how Ponzi scheme runner Amber Dalal dodged Mumbai cops

According to police sources, while trying to trace Dalal, who went into hiding on March 14, the investigators first looked for him at places like Juhu, Andheri, and Dahisar. But by then, he had already escaped to Gujarat. As he had a sense that the police were after him, he did not stay there for long and moved to the neighbouring state of Rajasthan. From Rajasthan, he went to Uttarakhand to avoid the teams of Mumbai police.

EOW sources told The Indian Express while moving from one state to another, the Oshiwara resident switched hotels, and avoided trains and mobile phones to evade the police for 12 days.

“He was scared of being caught. He avoided using his mobile phone so that his locations were not tracked. He avoided travelling by train wherever possible (due to the CCTV network) and used transport buses and other road transport mediums to travel. To dodge cops, he chose to stay in small budget hotels and is believed to have switched six hotels while he was on the run,” said an EOW officer.

On March 22, EOW got the first concrete lead that Dalal was holed up in Uttarakhand. An EOW team was immediately dispatched there. The team took help from officers at the Kotwali police station, Rishikesh, and looked for Dalal from their control room, which has an integrated CCTV network.

The police said they are also checking if he had taken a flight when he was on the run.

The police team also checked CCTV cameras at Dehradun Railway Station and Dehradun Bus Depot. Finally, with the help of a technical probe and source-based inputs, he was traced to Hotel J R S near the Balak Nath temple in Rishikesh. From the hotel, he was first taken to the Muni Ki Reti police station in the hill state’s Garhwal district for identification procedures, and from there, he was brought to Mumbai, said an EOW source.

Investigators claim that Dalal did not give his family any idea of his escape plan. Thus, the family had first approached the Oshiwara police station with a missing person complaint. However, the victims have said the police must thoroughly investigate the family and their properties.

An investor alleged Dalal had told them he was training his son for this business. The investors also alleged that Dalal has properties in Dubai in his family members’ name. The police said they are verifying these claims.

After the police conducted searches and seized DVRs and NAS drives from the computer system of Dadal’s office in Lokhandwala, they found details of many bank accounts. After this, the EOW wrote to 36 banks, seeking details of transactions done by Dalal’s company and bank accounts linked to his company. Nearly 20 bank accounts have been frozen till now.

Web of Ponzi scheme run by Amber Dalal

Promising 1.5-1.8 per cent monthly return on investments, Dalal, the chief proprietor of Ritz Consultancy Services Company, allegedly ran a Ponzi scheme by telling people he would invest their money in various risk-free markets and give them assured returns.

However, when the money wasn’t credited into investors’ accounts on the regular payout date in March, investors confronted him but he gave several excuses. On March 15, the police registered a case against Dalal for allegedly cheating dozens of investors based on a complaint lodged by a Juhu-based fashion designer.

So far, over 600 investors have approached the Mumbai police, claiming they were duped of more than Rs 380 crore by Dalal and that the number would go up as there are more victims of the Ponzi scheme run by him.

The EOW officers said they would now question Dalal about where he diverted the funds and how he used them. The officers said they would also try to find out if he used the investors’ money unlawfully to amass properties.