Direct marketing firm Amway India’s chairman & CEO William S Pinckney and two company directors were granted bail by a Kerala court on Tuesday, hours after remanding them to judicial custody.
The three persons were arrested by the Crime Branch of the Economic Offences Wing in Kozhikode yesterday in connection with fraud cases registered in the Wayanad district. Kalpetta Judicial First Class Magistrate N Ravishankar last night remanded them for 14 days. They were booked under the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act based on complaints filed by two persons in 2011.
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The police had in August carried out searches at nine Amway centres in three districts in Kerala as part of the ongoing drive against money chain activities and cheating through MLM campaigns. Police had also arrested the area manager of Amway in the state, PM Rajkumar, in November 2012. Kerala police has been in the last two years investigating multi-level marketing (MLM) and direct selling companies operating in the state for financial frauds. In October 2012, Kerala police had arrested Sajeev N Nair, state head of MonaVie, a direct selling company that promotes energy drinks.
Amway in its statement on Tuesday said that it is aggrieved and shocked at the sudden and unwarranted act of detention of its officials, especially when they were fully cooperating in investigations, responsive to queries and documentation requests of the police authorities. “What can best be described as a routine consumer redressal issue or complaint has been misinterpreted and booked under the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act 1978 (PCMCS). This has repeatedly been a challenge not only in Kerala but elsewhere across India, for the direct selling industry,” company sources said.