AGARTALA / KOLKATA, Mar 23 (TIWN): ScamsterGautamKundu led Rose Valley Chit Fund company originated from Tripura with a meagre capital and customer base before Kundu roped in State CPI-M leaders to help in expanding business. From nothing to Rose Valley’s fraud of duping Rs 15,000 crores investors money was only possible due to patronage by Tripura and Bengal CPI-M Chief Ministers Manik Sarkar &Buddhadeb Bhattacharya.The meteoric rise of GautamKundu and Rose Valley, a relatively small firm operating out of Tripura with some business stake in Bengal, began when his elder brother's car fell into a lake, killing his entire family.Kajal Kundu, who established the company in 1997, and his wife and son were on their way to Guwahati from Agartala when the unexplained accident killed them in 2003, following which GautamKundu took over the firm.

GautamKundu hardly looked back since then as Tripura CPI-M leaders like Gautam Das &others  provided active support  to spread this Ponzi business across Tripura, followed by Left ruled West Bengal.  

Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar’s active patronage in acquiring tribal lands at throughway price to establish ‘Rose Valley Entertainment Park’ at Amtali and Chief Minister’s subsequent 45 minute inaugural speech hypnotized common people to invest their life savings into Rose Valley Chit Fund.  Much before Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul came in to power in Bengal,Gautam Kundu’s Rose Valley was beaming with Chit collection fortunes over Rs 2000 crores due to Communists blessings.

ScamsterGautamKundu’s elder brother Kajal Kundu sold insurance for more than a decade before launching a collective investment scheme in the rose plantation sector in 1997 under a company named Rose Resorts and Plantations.

Two years later, the company applied to market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for an approval but was denied a licence.

The company wound up in 2003, the year he died.

Under GautamKundu's supervision, the company changed track and launched another scheme under the name of Ashirvad. He expanded the business to Bengal, Odisha and the northeastern states.

The scheme solicited investors to deposit money with the firm as booking amounts for plots. After a particular period, the investors had the option of taking back the money with interest or the delivery of land.

However, hardly any investor - many of whom came from humble backgrounds - was aware of the details of the schemes floated by the company. They were just promised a hefty return, which beat rates offered by banks and post offices.

According to Sebi, Rose Valley's cash collections leapfrogged from 2006-2007 onwards. From a meagre Rs 3.75 crore collected between 2005 and 2006, the company mopped up Rs 1271.98 crore by 2009-10.

This prompted the then Left Front government's director of the economic offences investigation cell to write to Sebi on December 7, 2009, seeking an investigation.

The collection ballooned to Rs 2016.32 crore by March 31, 2011, shortly before Trinamul came to power.

In January 2011, Sebi barred Rose Valley Real Estate and Construction Ltd from raising money. By that time, GautamKundu, known for his flashy lifestyle - he is one of the few in Calcutta to own a Rolls Royce - had ventured into hospitality.

The seeds of this business were sown in the middle of the last decade, when Rose Valley set up one of the largest hotels in Mandarmani.

Thereafter, the company claimed to have bought properties across India, starting from Calcutta (Chrome Hotel) to Durgapur, Siliguri, Midnapore, Tarapith, Old Digha, Silchar, Haridwar, Goa, Jaipur and New Delhi.

In 2013, Sebi pulled up Rose Valley Hotels and Entertainments Ltd and barred it from collecting money.

The market regulator found that the company had been running a collective investment scheme under the name of Rose Valley Holiday Membership Plan, for which investors were required to pay monthly instalments for accommodation at the hotels and resorts owned by the company.

The scheme also allowed investors the option of getting back the principal amount and the interest accrued on it on maturity if they did not avail themselves of the accommodation.

The interest rates varied between 11.96 per cent and 17.65 per cent. Around 21.9 lakh investors had subscribed to the scheme, according to Sebi.

GautamKundu diversified into other businesses too. Apart from producing films with reputed directors, he owned a Bengali newspaper, a TV channel and a jewellery chain, among other things. Rose Valley was also a lead sponsor for Kolkata Knight Riders.

GautamKundu established Rose Valley Media and Entertainment Wing in 2009 as a public limited company to launch "television channels, radio stations and cable networks".

It started with a 24-hour entertainment channel, Ruposhi Bangla, followed by the news channels News Time, News Time Assam, Odisha Time and Khabar 365 Din. In the entertainment space, there was the music channel Dhoom Music and the movie channel Dhoom Cinema.

In 2009, Rose Valley Films claimed to have spent nearly Rs 10 crore on film production. "We started producing Bengali films to detect new local talent," GautamKundu had said in an interview.

GautamKundu led Rose Valley duped investors to the tune of Rs. 15,000/- crores in which Tripura’s share is over Rs 900 crores.