The Kerala police on Monday arrested William S Pinckney (pictured), managing director and CEO of direct-selling company Amway India, on the ground that the company’s business was illegal — 15 years after it started operating in India.
Two directors of the company, Anshu Budhraja and Sanjay Malhotra, were also booked. The trio was arrested from Calicut and is likely to be produced in court on Tuesday.
A top official of Economic Affairs Wing (EOW), Kerala, who was part of the operation that led to the arrests, said: “With the call of easy money, they have been luring people to invest. The new members in turn had to get more people and this was leading to illegal money circulation. We had received several complaints against the company.”
The officials have now been taken into custody in relation to an FIR that was filed in 2011.
Amway stopped short of calling the arrests illegal. “With respect to the 2011 case, the company or its officials were not issued any summons to join the investigation and neither was any information sought by the police,” it said.
There was another case filed by an ex-Amway distributor in 2012, charging the company with cheating. The company officials had received bail in that case. While probing the 2012 case, the police found that goods were being sold at overpriced rates. A product worth Rs37 was being sold to consumers at Rs395.
The EOW had also conducted raids at Amway’s godown in Kozhikode, Thrissur and Kannur and seized goods worth Rs2.14 crore last year.
