Investors of Heera Islamic Business Group, better known as Heera Gold, are in a panic over payment delays and rumours about financial difficulties faced by the group, which has amassed vast sums of money by specifically targeting the Muslim community by invoking the name of “Allah” in its sales pitch. The trigger for people gathering to protest at Heera Gold’s plush offices in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and other cities is the decision to 'share profit' once in three months instead of every month. But that is not the only issue.
Videos sent to us show that officials at Heera Gold's corporate office at Hyderabad refused to meet people and had locked the office from outside while staying inside. The controversial group is under investigation by the Enforcement Department and the Serious Frauds Office of India (SFIO) for several years, but the community continued to be lured by the high monthly returns offered by its Ponzi-like business.
Interestingly, the group is headed by Dr Aalima Shaikh Nowhera (Nowhera Shaik), Chief Executive of Heera Group, who investors say is no longer in India. Typical of Ponzi operations that are in trouble, she has released a video to allay fears of investors and run down critics and those who are panicking at the payment delays. Source say that its immediate financial troubles follow its foray into politics. In 2017, Dr Shaik, CEO of Heera Gold formed the All India Mahila Empowerment Party under the banner of justice for humanity. This party even contested 221 out of the 225 seats in the recently concluded Karnataka Assembly elections with a 'diamond’ as its symbol. It is rumoured to have lost large sums of money. This and other rumours has triggered panic among people who want their money back.
Heera Group claims to be a gold trading company with business all over the world. In the past four years, the lack of any enforcement action by investigation agencies has allowed it to grow rapidly and diversify into diverse business. In the past two years Moneylife has raised the issue of Heera Gold's Ponzi operations with two SEBI Chairman — Mr UK Sinha as well as Mr Ajay Tyagi — because it operated like a vast collective investment scheme. Neither of the two SEBI chairmen bothered to respond. Our communication we said, "We hope SEBI will take note of this and hasten action so that people do not end up losing money. Many women too are being conned into borrowing against property to invest in these companies on the claim that the returns would be significantly higher than the interest they would pay on their loans."
Investigations and information by a premier government agency, perused by Moneylife, claim that Heera Gold is involved in hawala activities. The note lists various actions against the group. For instance, on 17 May 2014, the Hyderabad Police apprehended six accused, while Heera Group promoter, Dr Shaik was named an absconding accused. Subsequently, on 21 May 2014, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) searched Heera Group premises and seized documents pertaining to the illegal transfer of money through hawala.
Earlier, in August 2012, Asaduddin Owaisi, Member of Parliament (MP) from Hyderabad, had reportedly registered a case against Dr Shaik for cheating a large number of local investors from his constituency.
The Heera Group began its operations in 2010 and since then, claims to have created 25 legal entities. Of these, only 10 were found to be registered on Registrar of Companies (ROC), Hyderabad and only four are found to have filed Balance Sheets (FY2012-13), which are being analysed. It is not registered under FCRA, says a government source.
A large number of PAN, TIN and other State-level registration numbers are shown on its website and are under ED and State Police investigation. These 10 companies have two sisters as Directors, namely Dr Shaik and Mubarak Jahan Shaik. The third Director (in only three companies) is another woman named Khamar Jahan Shaikh.
The Group claims to operate through over 19 companies in various business sectors, like gold trading, trading, textile, jewellery, mineral water, granite, tours and travels, developers, electronics, Hajj and Umrah services among others. Heera Group claims to have its offices in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Canada, China and Hong Kong. It markets itself as a trader in gold products and gold dust.
Few days ago, several investors from Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Aurangabad from Maharashtra and Karnataka reached Heera Gold's central office at Hyderabad. They wanted to know why there was change in the payout scheme. However, instead of responding to issues raised by investors, the staff at Heera Gold closed office doors from inside.
Galli News from Hyderabad have also raised several questions on Heera Gold change in payouts. Here is the video from Galli News…
Earlier this week, Hyderabad-based Shahbaz Ahmed Khan, who is vocal critic of Heera Gold's business model had filed a complaint alleging life threats from Dr Shaik. Speaking with The Hans India, Khan had said that ever since he started questioning about the ‘dubious’ nature of the business which offers investors a monthly return of Rs3,000 per Rs1 lakh, he has been facing life threat from the business woman-turned-politician. “At least three investors have approached me to help them. Hence, I request the police department to enquire into the businesses of the Heera Gold. For the past eight years, I have been facing threat from the woman,” Khan was quoted as saying in the report.
We tried to call the company at several numbers listed under an address at Banjara Hills, Hyderabad on its website but they were all unreachable. The Heera Gold complaints boardreveals that most of the financial problems and delays in crediting interest/profit share have started in the past 3 or 4 months. Until then the board was inundated with questions about how to invest in the group
Comments
Saqib Mohammed
7 years ago
There are many other ponzi schemes very similar to Hera. One such scheme is IMA - I monetary advisory which also brands itself as halal and risk free investment to lure muslims. Hope moneylife is exposing the other scams and the regulators are taking action soon to recover investors' money while it is still possible.
Salaam to everyone who is reading, now my question is how can we come out of this means how we will get our investment Back what is the solution and whom do we have to right and speak so that our money should not be big time gone.
Salam Every body here.
Alhamdulillah by the grace of almighty allah swt. i have received my benefits on 06-09-2018 from Heera Foodex. i am very much happy and thanks allah for the end of all the bad rumours circling around the investors.. more over i have already chk with some of my friends and reletives and they didnt receive i am the lucky one to have it in 1st week of this month and hope all the investors will get their benefits by the end of this month. the only query in my mind is i have invested 4 lacs in april and waiting for may,june july as they said 3 months but i receive 22788 i just inform one of my relative to go and check about this amount......
As salaamu Alaikum...its a miracle brother...because on one has received yet. It would be helpful if you could share some proof of payment...still question in mind that you might be writing on behalf of Heera ...Jazakallah..
Cropped Bank statement would be helful and will be a source of peace for other investors.
This is nothing but a repeat of the Jayalitha and her secretary story. It remains to be seen if Nowhera will be murdered by her own secretary. Molly has been hired by the politicians to funnel out all of the money from Heera Gold into their hands ! Do an investigation on Molly and you will find out all the truth you need to about Heera Gold.
My 100% suspicion is that Nowhere Shaikh is held under house arrest or kidnapped by her own secretary Molly who has a very suspicious background. Molly used to work in the US in virginia. She left her job and took up a Nanny job at Nowhere Shaikh's house to take care of the former's adopted child. Now who in their right mind would leave the US to work as a Nanny in India. Not only this, she won Nowhere Shaikh's trust to such an extent that Molly had her husband and son managing the call center for Heera Gold. That call center has vanished. Then Molly started taking the front seat in all the business decisions and I have been told by a person who was doing a gold deal with Heera Gold, that the deal did not go through because Molly wanted a higher commission !!!!! Can you believe that a woman who is working at the level of Nanny can run a call center business and negotiate gold deals. Slowly, as she took hold of all of Nowhera's cell phones and email access and nobody was able to reach Nowhere. Now I do not know if Nowhere has been murdered. Molly started transferring all bank accounts to Kerala, because she is from Kerala and can have a good hold on the bankers. Every month investors were given new bank accounts because Molly was changing banks left and right. Now I hear rumors that the money has already been transferred out of the country. It will not be long because Molly vanishes, either leaving Nowhere to reap for her sins. I have personally talked to Molly and found her to be a psysopath liar.
This group united all. Think?? Real time to support. No benefits can go if its in your destiny. Dont be a prey to the medias. Be united. Rizk is in Allaahs hand only.
On any other day I would have agreed with you 100%. But at this time with Heera group behaving like fraudsters and ponzi owners, your words are hurting. Sorry about that. Allah please prove me wrong in my thoughts.
But whatever I have observed and read in the past few months( including conversations with heera group people Molly and others), I have a strong feeling that people have lost their money
Assalam walaikum.
You are absolutely right my brother, this group has United all the people. We should stay United otherwise peoples are mastered their skills in divide and rule policy. After all rizk is in Allah's hand.
Hope the investors get their money back. Ala,though time and again people have been cheated still the lure of high returns lead people to invest in such schemes. It is always proper to first investigate about the company and then invest
Basically Heera Gold is Ponzi Company. The company management has collected crores of Rupees by making fool to the people. Even the company has grossly broken the law of land as under:-
1. As Pvt Ltd company cannot accept deposits from peoples, still company accepted deposits.
2. The company was paying per month 3% fixed return on investment and that too without TDS.
3. In ROC filing company has never shown correct deposits figures and figures of turnover.
Mrs Dalal, I also call up hyd office call center and they did receive my call. They say that there are banking transaction limits set by banks after Nirav Modi episode, and there are issues related to GST calculation every month. Hence to reduce number of transactions, they have decided to change the terms & conditions and distribute profits every quarter instead of every month. Can you confirm if this is true and there are any transaction limit set by banks for transactions every day/month.
Why not call up or write to Reserve Bank of India or to the bankers in question? Answer is simple - if you are doing legit business, then there is no limit to the number of transactions, nor is filing GST a problem. Good luck with your savings.
Mintvest.......a 'smart investement' company luring gullible senior citizens/Public in advertising enmasse offering18% rate,montly. ON speaking to them, how they could give this much, it is being told, they offer Bridge loans /Under write loans of Banks, by lending the Banks and the companies who are offered loans. Lot of door to door canvassing is undergoing mainly targetting seniors , in Chennai..Needs probing
It will be tragic if the hard earned money of the common people is lost on such Ponzi schemes. Thank you Team MoneyLife for educating us about such frauds which occur in regular intervals.
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Alhamdulillah by the grace of almighty allah swt. i have received my benefits on 06-09-2018 from Heera Foodex. i am very much happy and thanks allah for the end of all the bad rumours circling around the investors.. more over i have already chk with some of my friends and reletives and they didnt receive i am the lucky one to have it in 1st week of this month and hope all the investors will get their benefits by the end of this month. the only query in my mind is i have invested 4 lacs in april and waiting for may,june july as they said 3 months but i receive 22788 i just inform one of my relative to go and check about this amount......
Cropped Bank statement would be helful and will be a source of peace for other investors.
But whatever I have observed and read in the past few months( including conversations with heera group people Molly and others), I have a strong feeling that people have lost their money
You are absolutely right my brother, this group has United all the people. We should stay United otherwise peoples are mastered their skills in divide and rule policy. After all rizk is in Allah's hand.
1. As Pvt Ltd company cannot accept deposits from peoples, still company accepted deposits.
2. The company was paying per month 3% fixed return on investment and that too without TDS.
3. In ROC filing company has never shown correct deposits figures and figures of turnover.