The anatomy of a small-town scam: How glib talk, social media reels & smalltown dreams fuelled a big scam in UP

Between these two scenes lies the story of 30-year-old Amit Kumar Gautam, the son of a labourer from a village in Uttar Pradesh, who went on to complete his B.Com and then, in the pursuit of more, drifted onto the wrong side of law. It is the story of the company he built to get there, Senemi Consulting Pvt Ltd, and, according to investigators, of nearly 50,000 people across western UP and Uttarakhand who were pulled into what police describe as a chit-fund-like chain scheme that raised an estimated Rs 123 crore over three years before collapsing.

It is also, in many ways, a story about how the promise of a better life can lure ordinary people into elaborately staged rackets laid by those who know how to sell that dream.

In Senemi’s case, the trail runs long: a garment shop owner who took a credit card loan to invest, a driver who sold his truck, a man who sold his wife’s jewellery, an advocate and many more, stretching all the way to Haridwar. As The Indian Express found while crisscrossing the region to map the sprawl of the alleged scam and speaking to police officers and victims, this was not just another chit-fund story. Here, investors were drawn in by an alluring mix: multi-level marketing spiel, a shopping mart, a dedicated app, social media drama and persuasive local referrals. Arrested on October 7, 2025, Gautam is currently lodged in a Muzaffarnagar jail.

Some of the victims at the toy shop that Farhad Alam (standing) owns in Muzaffarnagar

Promise: Bike, car, more money

Rewind to that video. Behind the quiet confidence of the speaker lies Gautam’s journey — a graduate from Khedki village in Purkazi, Muzaffarnagar, who started his career with a local distributor for a health and wellness products company.

Purkazi is also known as Suliwala Bagh, or the “Garden of Gallows”, a name that refers to the executions said to have been carried out here during the freedom struggle of 1857. Today, with a population of around 30,000 and a majority drawn from the Muslim community, it resembles many of the dusty, slow-moving towns across the region. Most households here are engaged in farming, employed in nearby sugarcane mills, or involved in dairy production. Many residents earn a living through tailoring, too, with small shops marking the bylanes. Purkazi is also home to several people serving in the Army or the police.

It is against this backdrop that Gautam, driven by an ambition to make it to the big league, established Senemi Consulting in 2022 along with his wife, Vandana Joshi, whom he married in early 2024 — his family claims it was his second marriage. “Since he earlier worked as a distributor for a similar company, he had strong contacts in the town. In Senemi’s multi-level chain system, one distributor has to enrol multiple distributors, and profits are shared from each new addition. However, the bulk of the profit goes to the company owner or the initial members of the chain. He knew that if he managed to connect a large number of people, he could make money and then disappear,” says a police officer.

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Under the brand name “Senemi Mart”, the company sold soaps, shampoos, creams and other beauty products, giving the scheme a retail-business cover. Each investment was tied to the purchase of these products: an investment of Rs 1 lakh required buying goods worth Rs 5,000, while Rs 50,000 required products worth Rs 2,500. The company also promised incentives, such as a bike for bringing in investments worth Rs 10 lakh, a car for Rs 30 lakh, and even a flat for Rs 60 lakh.

To polish his credentials, Gautam held seminars in Muzaffarnagar and Haridwar. DSP (Sadar) Ravi Shankar says Gautam also used social media, posting reels on Instagram and Facebook, and travelled with bodyguards to project influence. The company developed an app where investors could track their accounts and returns. “To build trust, Senemi paid returns for a few months but later stopped. When investors began putting pressure on the company, Amit and his associates shut it down and fled,” says SSP (Muzaffarnagar) Sanjai Kumar.

Victims: ‘Wife warned me’

In Purkazi, the toy shop owner, Alam, says he invested around Rs 1 lakh in December 2024 in Senemi after being lured by Gautam’s videos. “Then, one of my relatives, who had also invested in Senemi, made me a member. He was on the fifth level in the chain and assured me that my money would become two and a half times in 16 months. I got the promised returns initially. But after three months, the payments stopped coming. Since March (2025), I haven’t received a single paisa. When I contacted the company, they said their funds had been seized by the government. They kept delaying payments for a few more months and eventually shut down operations and disappeared,” he says.

For Alam, whose shop is just 14 km from Gautam’s family home, the loss meant that his dream of providing “a better life” for his daughter and “upgrading” his shop was shattered.

Naveed Khan, who runs a dental lab in Purkazi and lives with his wife and two sons, says he invested around Rs 1.38 lakh in Senemi. “I thought that since many people in our area had already invested, why shouldn’t I?” he says. He, too, received monthly returns “for three months” before payments stopped. “The police are helping us, but I am scared that they (the accused) may harm me and my family because I am among the main complainants in the case,” he says.

Gautam with one of the investors

Mohammad Alam, an advocate from Purkazi, says he was “even given a cheque of Rs 5 lakh from the company as a security in case I did not receive my returns”. “The whole system was so accurate and up-to-date that we were influenced by it. My brother Aas Mohammad and I together invested around Rs 5 lakh in January (2025) and received about Rs 1.5 lakh in three monthly payments. That was it,” he says.

There are many more in the queue. Mohammad Asif, who runs a garment shop, says he took a credit card loan to invest in Gautam’s company. “I started with Rs 25,000 and received a return of Rs 35,000 in 10 months. Then my neighbour encouraged me to invest more for better returns. I had an offer on my credit card, so I took loans and invested the money. My wife warned me against investing such a huge amount, but I was confident of getting the returns,” he says. “I received just two payments of Rs 80,000 each for two months until March. Since then, nothing has come.”

Azim Khan, a driver, says he sold his truck to invest in Senemi. “I was lured by the promise of good monthly returns, so I sold my vehicle and invested around Rs 5 lakh. I am a driver, and that vehicle was my only source of income. I don’t know how we will survive now,” he says.

Another investor says, “I invested around Rs 50,000 after attending multiple seminars and after selling my wife’s jewellery. It was my greed for the 16 per cent return… I received monthly installments of Rs 3,500 for three months. Earlier, they had promised Rs 4,000 per month, but later they said they would deduct TDS. The payments stopped after three months, and when I enquired, they told me that the government had conducted raids on the company.”

‘Never gave anything to family’

Dheeraj Singh, a labourer in Khedki village and the father of the main accused, says he disowned his son Gautam three years ago. “He is the eldest of my five sons. He started working as a salesman in a beauty products company when he was in Class 12 and later, we learned that he had started his company… He never gave a single paisa to his family. He left us in the middle of his B.Com. We don’t know where he stayed or what work he was doing,” he says.

Singh say Gautam married in 2019 and separated from his wife in 2023. “He did not take care of his wife and three children, and they left him… It is from the media that we came to know that he has been arrested for fraud. We also heard about a woman named Vandana, whom the police claim is his wife,” says Gautam’s father.

At the local police station, a member of the staff described Gautam as “bold and talkative from childhood”. “People in the village appreciated him for working even while in school,” he says.

Police say Gautam later moved to Haridwar, where Senemi’s office and godown were located, and enlisted two associates — Sarfaraz, a delivery man for a gas agency, and Vijay Kumar from Saharanpur — to build the company’s network.

During interrogation, Gautam allegedly told the police that he had lost all the money invested in Senemi to a cryptocurrency crash. “We are verifying his claims, though we haven’t got any documentary proof of his investment so far,” DSP Shankar says. Investigators say much of the money appears to have been invested in real estate in western UP and Haridwar.

Accused held, wife on the run

Last year, following multiple complaints, the police started cracking down on Senemi and Gautam. Two FIRs were registered at Purkazi and Civil Lines police stations, and another in Haridwar. The first FIR was filed on September 25, 2025, on a complaint by Rajeev Kumar along with 16 others. Another was registered on October 5 at Purkazi police station on a complaint by Naveed, the dental lab owner, who told police that when he approached the company’s headquarters in Haridwar, bouncers and security personnel abused him and asked him to leave.

On October 7, 2025, police arrested Gautam and two of his alleged associates, Sarfaraz and Shadab, from Muzaffarnagar. Last month, two others were arrested — Satish Sharma from Haridwar and Sonu Kumar from Muzaffarnagar. Later, a Muzaffarnagar court remanded them in judicial custody. Vandana is absconding. Police say over 10 other suspects are on the run.

According to police, beauty products and household items worth around Rs 4 crore were seized from the company’s Haridwar office and associated premises following the arrests. The bail petitions of the accused were rejected by the Muzaffarnagar court and are under consideration in the Allahabad High Court.

When contacted by The Indian Express, Senemi’s legal representatives said: “Since the matter is sub judice, we would not be able to share any new information apart from what is already available in the public domain or is a matter of record. The cases are borne out of purely civil and contractual disputes, which have resulted in criminal cases. We have utmost respect for the Indian judiciary and are of firm belief that justice shall prevail in this case as well.”

Asked about relief for all those who were allegedly duped, DSP Shankar said, “If required, the seized properties will be sold to return their hard-earned money.”