Over nine crore rupees worth gold coins were seized from its office premises Saturday.
The arrested include Pushpam (30), manager of the Chennai branch, Augustine (32), Hariprasad (39), Umesh (25), Dhandapani (33), Chandrasekar (40) and Sri Vidya (28), all operators of Goldquest.
Meanwhile, 35 persons believed to be operators (marketing men) of Goldquest (a network marketing scheme that sells gold coins) who tried to stage a demonstration in front of the Commissionerate condemning the arrest were also taken into custody.
A branch of Goldquest was functioning in Chetpet headed by one Vijyayendran. It had allegedly announced that any person who joins the gold coin scheme by remitting a sum of Rs 33,000 (Indian Rupees) would be given two gold coins.
Attracted by the scheme many joined the scheme.
However, since the company did not supply anything as promised, around 30 members lodged a complaint with Commissionerate a few months ago.
Meanwhile, one Dineshkumar recently filed a complaint alleging that the company had defrauded him of Rs 70,000.
Based on his complaint a team headed by Joint Commissioner Ravi raided the company and seized 71 kgs of gold coin worth Rs nine crore and arrested seven persons.
It may be noted that Pushpam and Agustine were arrested in one such case in the year 2003.
Previously Goldquest officials have been arrested in countries such as Nepal where its scheme had been banned.
In Sri Lanka Goldquest has issued statements repeatedly denying they were running a pyramid scheme.
Indonesian police have arrested top operatives of the Goldquest scheme, while its founder is also wanted by Interpol for his activities in the Philippines, reports said last year.
- Sri Lanka Guardian
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