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Our Bureau

The company says it is yet to be informed of the reasons for this inquiry.

Hyderabad , Sept. 25

The Crime Investigation Department (CID) here has raided the offices of Amway India in Hyderabad and eight other cities and towns in Andhra Pradesh and conducted `search and seizure' operations.

According to the Additional Director General of Police, CID, Mr T. Krishna Raju, the sleuths seized a number of documents and articles from the offices of Amway at Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Vizag, Tirupati, Nizamabad, Kurnool, Kakinada, Guntur and Nellore.

COMPLAINT

The police said they acted on a complaint that Amway members had trapped a person and induced him to become its member. Though he was initially asked to enrol further members to get more commissions, he was later "harassed mentally" in this regard, police said.

After going through the documents and articles seized from the offices of Amway, the police said the company offered its members `quick and easy money by way of commissions and incentives.' The police also said, "the company induces members to enrol members to go to the top as leaders in the group."

Stating that further investigation into the issue was going on, the police said in a detailed press release that the case details were also being passed on to the Drugs authorities, Income Tax and Sales Tax departments for alleged violation of various laws of the concerned departments.

Expressing serious reservations over the manner in which the enquiry was being conducted, Amway India in a press statement said it "is yet to be informed of the reasons for this inquiry and it will adopt all measures including legal resource to resolve this issue."

While assuring full cooperation to the police teams, the company said the knee-jerk action of police would impact the livelihood of its more than 4.5 lakh distributors.

Amway said it has been at the forefront along with members of the Indian Direct Selling Association (IDSA) demanding legislation for the direct selling industry to differentiate the genuine direct selling companies from the fly-by-night operators.

Amway said it had commenced Indian operations after obtaining permission from the Government and Foreign Investment Promotion Board. With marketing 75 products in four categories, the company has 74 offices and 55 warehouses across the country and clocked a turnover of Rs 705 crore last year.

The company said that during the last fiscal it has paid over Rs 9.57 crore in sales tax in AP besides having a manufacturing unit in Hyderabad. The company said it contributes around Rs 200 crore to the national exchequer as direct and indirect taxes linked to its business.

More Stories on : Direct Marketing | Economic Offences | Andhra Pradesh

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