Amway India Chairman Arrested For Financial Irregularities

 

Network marketing firm Amway's India chairman and CEO William S Pinckney and two company directors were arrested on Monday on charges of financial irregularities. The two directors are Sanjay Malhotra and Anshu Budhraja, crime branch sources said.

The men are expected to be presented in court today, being formally charged under India’s Prize Chits and Money Circulation Act (1972), following an investigation into a First Information (FIR) report filed back in 2011.

The arrests were made on a complaint of a woman who claimed to have incurred loss through the network and on the basis of three cases registered against the company last year in Wayanad district, they said.

Police had questioned the trio earlier this month and had asked them to report again on Monday for further questioning. They were arrested when they arrived at the police station.

Last year, the crime branch (economic offences) wing here had conducted searches at the Amway office at Thrissur, Kozhikode and Kannur as part of its crackdown on money chain activities. Their godowns at these centres were closed and goods produced were also seized. The searches were launched following a complaint lodged by Visalakshi of Kozhikode claiming that she had incurred losses.

After this arrest, the crime branch had decided to probe Amway’s insurance business, an earlier Mathrubhumi report said.

There were complaints that Amway had supplied new products to distributors at high price. Lakhs of rupees thus collected was invested in the insurance business, the report said.

A probe into the multilevel marketing firm found that products that were Rs 37 was sold to consumers for Rs 395 as MRP.

The investigation was conducted after Vishalakshi from Kozhikode complained that she lost Rs 3 lakh on selling Amway products.