A bizarre and obscure advertisement appeared on the front page of a national daily yesterday which left the readers, as well as netizens puzzled. The ad placed by a little known US-based company Landomus Realty Ventures in ‘Times of India’ sought to have a one-on-one meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and claimed to invest $500 billion (over ₹36 lakh crore) in India’s National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP).
“Landomus Realty Ventures Inc., USA, would like to invest USD 500 Billion in Equity as the First Phase of the USD 2 Trillion investment under Build India into the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) and Non-NIP projects listed by the Government of India under the India Investment Grid for ‘Invest India’ initiative,” Landomus Group Chairman Pradeep Kumar Satyaprakash said in the advertisement.
Strange ad in the Times of India today. This company wants to invest $500 billion in India, slightly less than Indian total hard currency reserves and it is going the advertorial route with an appeal to the Indian PM? Wonder why. pic.twitter.com/s2Qdi5P8HD
— Smita Prakash (@smitaprakash) May 24, 2021
“Landomus Realty Ventures aims to make India a global destination by supporting the completion of NIP and non-NIP projects along with investors and developers under the India Investment Grid in sectors such as energy, social infrastructure, manufacturing, transport, food processing and agriculture, water and sanitisation,” Satyaprakash added.
A company that is planning to invest $500Bn in India:
Website: https://t.co/FAFFHRJYMG
Domain registered by: United Land Bank
Employees: 19
Revenue: $3mnSomething isn't right #Landomus pic.twitter.com/qam0fwMFMl
— 🆁🅺 (@TheRishiK) May 24, 2021
With the advertisement having a plethora of red flags, the netizens started questioning if it was a Ponzi company looking to pull some kind of scam. The gargantuan investment sum of US $ 500 billion promised by the company dwarfed the $125 billion fortune of Microsoft founder Bill Gates and yet no one around had heard about the ‘exotic’ company and its living existence.
Media reports citing Zoominfo informed that the company has just 19 employees, $15 million in revenue and hosts just a one-page website, which lists Mamatha HN, Yashas Pradeep Kumar, Rakshith Gangadhar and Gunashree Pradeep Kumar as “directors” apart from Satyaprakash as its chairperson and CEO and five “advisors”.
According to MoneyControl, it was revealed that the domain was registered by United Land Bank, which is located in Sivan Chetty Gardens in Karnataka, India. According to information available on Zaubacorp.com, there is one Landomus Realty Ventures Private Limited in India.
The registered address of the company is S-415, 4th Floor, Manipal Center, # 47, Dickenson Road (Off M.G.Road) Bangalore. The company was registered in July 2015. It has an authorised capital of Rs.10 lakh and a paid-up capital of Rs.1,00,000.
However, the fact that a national daily publication that churns millions in profits every year did not even attempt to do its due diligence to check the legitimacy of the company before publishing the ad shows how easy it is to buy influence in the national media.
There is a reason why Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal got a free pass from the media for his astronomical failures in handling the second wave of the covid pandemic in the capital. Kejriwal splurges thousands of crores in advertisement and no publication house will like to miss out on business by dissing him or his party.
The company is simply a scam that any layman could have managed to decipher by reading the first line of the advertisement. However, it is TOI that has lost its face by publishing the ad for some measly sum of money.