Sunfeast says every fil of investors will be returned

Published Wednesday, May 22, 2013

By Joseph George

Thousands of investors are knocking on the doors of an outsourcing company to get their money back following the arrest of its two owners.

Representatives of Sunfeast Infotech, however, told Emirates 24|7 that all investors would be repaid and the company would resume its operations in the UAE soon.

Dubai’s Department for Economic Development (DED) last month sealed the offices of Sunfeast in Bur Dubai. Soon after, police arrested its two owners for alleged criminal activities.

According to rough estimates, at least 7,000 people may have made investments totalling several million dirhams, in an effort to make quick returns from the “attractive” scheme that Sunfeast was offering.

The investors, mostly salaried employees and housewives, now fear they could lose their savings.

Anyone could enter into a contract with the company and buy a project by paying a security deposit of Dh500 per project. They would then be given PDF documents to be typed in as Word documents. Every document would earn them Dh250, thereby enabling the project’s owner to get their deposit back in the first two assignments. From the third assignment onwards, it would be profit for investors.

In an effort to make quick returns, almost everyone who had invested purchased more than one project. A Pakistani national told Emirates 24|7 that he alone had about 40 projects following an investment of Dh20,000.

Fathima Jassim, a woman in her sixties, says she invested in eight projects and paid Dh4,000.

“We know of one person who invested in more than 100 projects and had employed several dozen typists back in Bangladesh to get the work done,” says Iftikhar, who himself had purchased over a dozen projects.

The company with offices in Chennai and London started operating in the UAE in 2012. Earlier this year, they launched the scheme in the country. “Initially, there were radio advertisements in several Hindi FM channels. We trust whatever is aired in the media,” says Shakeel, one of the affected.

The company made some initial payments and the word seemed to have spread like wildfire. Hundreds more approached the company to buy new projects.

The problems started when the DED sealed Sunfeast office in Bur Dubai last month and police arrested its two owners, Raja and Vir Kumar.

Jamal, the PRO of the company, told Emirates 24|7 that every fil would be returned and nobody would be cheated. “We are a reputed company, operating in India for the past 20 years. It is true that the owners have been arrested. Initially, the charge-sheet was very severe. But now it is being watered down. We are confident of their release,” he said.

“People have earned from us and today all of a sudden they cannot come and ask us to return their money within a day. We have asked them for some time. Within a week, all issues will be sorted,” he said.

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