Pune: A 28-year-old man, who faked his identity as a district development coordinator of Sri Sri Ravishankar’s ‘Art of Living’, has been arrested by Unit IV of the Crime Branch of Pune Police on charges of duping investors to the tune of Rs 1.5 crore. Crime Branch Unit IV Police Inspector Rajneesh Nirmal has appealed to citizens to come forward and file complaints if they have been duped by this imposter.

The suspect has been identified as Pranay Uday Khare (28), a resident of Salunkhe Vihar in Kondhwa. Ashwinikumar Kamble (44), a resident of Aundh, has filed a complaint against Khare in this regard. Based on this complaint, police have registered FIR against Khare.

According to the complaint, Khare had started a company named J K Ventures. He claimed to have purchased seven thousand acres of land in Ratnagiri and Khed area of Konkan region. Khare had lured Kamble into investing in his company JK Ventures for 15 years for one acre of land. Khare had promised Rs 1 crore for the first 11 investors in his company and Rs 50 lakh for the next 50 investors. The rest of the investors were promised a phase-wise return of Rs 40 lakh after six years.

Khare had also gained confidence of Kamble and lured him to invest in a short term plan and Moringa plants in order to get higher return on investment. Based on these promises, Kamble had invested Rs 1.5 crore in Khare’s company since 2017. However, when the promised returns were not delivered Kamble started demanding his money back.

Investigations revealed that Khare had started a few more companies named Vistar 360, The Yogik, AHO Lifestyle and Pranay Media Pvt Ltd. Several citizens from Pune city and outside have invested crores of rupees in these bogus companies. Khare used to organize workshops of Art of Living through his company J K Ventures and he was posing as the District Development Coordinator for Art of Living. He used to gain the confidence of citizens by misusing the name of Art of Living. Khare has 20 bank accounts. Police Inspector Rajneesh Nirmal, Police Sub Inspector Deepak Mane, Geeta Patil and their staff carried out this investigation.