The Torres company, which allegedly cheated hundreds of investors, has been found to have lured close to 100 investors in Navi Mumbai through their Ponzi scheme, promising them excessive returns on investments. A FIR has been registered with APMC police and the further investigations have been transferred to Economic Offence Wing (EOW). The company had also allegedly misled investors by creating a false impression that synthetic Moissanite stones would be worth more than diamonds in the future. Based on these findings, a suo motu case was registered by the police against the owners, directors, members, managers, supervisors, and sales officers of M/s Platinum Hearn Pvt. Ltd. (Torres). According to a crime branch officer, they had done a prior investigation on the company by sending a decoy purchaser and they would have registered a case against them if the protest would have not happened in Mumbai.

Torres started its jewelry shop in front of Mafco Market in Sanpada in September 2024. After that, sales officers and staff from the shop were allegedly misleading customers at seminars, offering attractive returns on purchases of gold, silver, original diamond jewelry, and moissanite stones. They were encouraging them to invest in jewelry, and if an investor brought in another, the company would offer a 20% investment bonus per customer. Additionally, through weekly lucky draws, customers were promised expensive cars and mobile phones as prizes. This led hundreds of customers to fall for the advertisements and invest lakhs of rupees.

“In the past month, we had send a decoy customer from the department as customer and purchased a moissanite stone worth Rs 6240 from the store. The sales officer assured of a weekly 9% return (Rs 561) on the investment, and the bonus was credited to the police officer's account,” a police officer said.

The moissanite stone purchased by the police was later tested at the Indian Gemological Institute on Charni Road, Mumbai, which confirmed that the stone was a synthetic moissanite. The police also checked the market value of the stone with a registered jewelry and moissanite stone valuator in Haji Ali, Mumbai, who reported the price as only Rs 230.

According to police, M/s Platinum Hearn Pvt. Ltd. (Torres) was found by one Indian and two foreign nationals, specifically from Ukraine and Russia. The three individuals had conspired to cheat hundreds of customers. Based on this, the police filed a case against the owners, directors, members, managers, supervisors, and sales officers under The Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (In Financial Establishments) Act, and relevant sections of BNS Act.

The case has been registered with APMC police and EOW is investigating it.