[Resolved]  Royal Indian Raj — Fraud & Deception - news article 1, bafflegab-prone company

Impressive news release probably about as far as this lotto scheme will get

A bafflegab-prone Vancouver company is at it again
David Baines, Vancouver Sun
Published: March 28, 2007

Royal Indian Raj International Corp. has a very grandiose name and issues very grandiose press releases, but its real purpose has always baffled me. Consider this corporate summary:
“Royal Indian Raj International Corporation, with offices in Vancouver, London, and Bangalore, India, maintains a country-specific, five-sector heavy infrastructure orientation, focused on the free world’s largest emerging market, India. The company’s goal is to develop the New India by modernizing housing and businesses and realizing self-sustaining cities of the future.”

According to chairman and CEO Manoj Benjamin of Vancouver, the company is now selling the first phase of an $8-billion to $10-billion US real estate development in Bangalore.

The project, according to Benjamin, is being financed by a $547-million US line of credit provided by the GEM Group in New York.

Unfortunately, the company is private and does not provide any audited financial statements to confirm its financial position. According to internal documents that I have obtained, the company relies on funding from many small investors and lives a hand-to-mouth existence, often scrambling to pay its bills.

The company also issues many news releases that serve no purpose other than to impress people who might be easily impressed.

On Monday, for example, Benjamin announced the company had “engaged the prestigious law firm of Greenberg Traurig as its lead counsel for all of its Real Estate Operations, Land Development, Hotel, Resort and Club Operations, Corporate and Securities Compliance, Franchise Operations, Entertainment and Project and Infrastructure Finance needs.” (Benjamin loves to capitalize words).

But I’m not sure how all this pomp and circumstance squares with Benjamin’s announcement on Feb. 28 that Royal Indian Raj had acquired a 10-per-cent interest in Global Lottery Corp., a Vancouver company that trades on the lowly pink sheets in the United States.

“While our core business is large scale Residential, Commercial and Institutional development, we decided to invest in the Lottery Business through Global, enabling us to be in a position to ultimately bid on the national lottery for India, ” he explained in a release.

Neither he nor Gary Newman, the president of Global Lottery, would say how much Royal Indian Raj paid for this 10-per-cent interest.

Newman said Royal Indian Raj has extended $250 million US of its $547 million US line of credit to his company to finance the development of government-approved lotteries.

But this will be difficult to confirm. Global Lottery – like most pink sheet companies – does not produce any audited financial statements.

Newman allowed that Global Lottery is not currently running any lotteries or generating any revenues, but he said the company will announce next month that it has secured two “major” government lotteries.

He agreed that, because he had not previously disclosed these pending deals, he was probably providing me with inside information. “I didn’t mean to, but I probably am, ” he said.

I would normally say that Newman has landed himself in a heap of trouble, but I think the chances of these “major” deals amounting to anything are virtually non-existent and the whole thing will fade into obscurity.