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Fraud: Petra Group boss painted self as trusted community member - witness
Petra Group chairperson Vinod Sekhar portrayed a social image that he was a trustworthy member of the community due to his connections with influential people, including Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, said one of the 12 individuals who sued him for RM30 million.
Graham David Bell, 66, said in his witness statement that this had led the plaintiffs to believe that Vinod (above) could be financially trusted and that the plaintiffs’ monies were for a genuine investment.
Summary
The KL High Court hears that businessperson Vinod Sekhar portrayed himself as a trusted member of the community due to his connections with influential people.
Graham David Bell says despite Vinod’s promises and representations that the investment was promising, his investment ultimately resulted in the disappearance of funds.
Petra Group chairperson Vinod Sekhar portrayed a social image that he was a trustworthy member of the community due to his connections with influential people, including Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, said one of the 12 individuals who sued him for RM30 million.
Graham David Bell, 66, said in his witness statement that this had led the plaintiffs to believe that Vinod (above) could be financially trusted and that the plaintiffs’ monies were for a genuine investment.
Bell said he had invested some US$250,000 (then RM950,000) in 2002, with the businessperson’s company, namely Petra Equities Sdn Bhd (PESB), particularly the Delink and Deprotin technologies.
However, he said that neither he nor the other foreign investors were informed of Vinod’s bankruptcy, which was declared on June 8, 2005.
“At the juncture (2021 to 2022), having considered all the media reports and the dubious responses from the first defendant (Vinod), we realised that we were victims of a fraud perpetrated by him and that he had no intention of returning any monies to us (the plaintiffs).
“The first defendant had used various excuses, such as his health problem, to deflect the plaintiff’s queries and continuously misled the plaintiffs into believing that he was a trustworthy person.
“Had I known that the first defendant was financially unstable, I would not have invested in any companies within the Petra Group or related to him,” he said in his evidence tendered in Kuala Lumpur High Court.
Bell added that despite Vinod’s promises and representations that the investment was promising, his investment ultimately resulted in the disappearance of funds.
Bell, who is a managing partner of Bridge Partners FZE, is the fourth plaintiff in the suit filed against Vinod and his wife, Winny Yeap Liew Heoh.
He is the first and only plaintiff witness in the suit, testifying in the suit’s first day of trial today, on behalf of the other plaintiffs as ordered by High Court judge Adam @ Edward Abdullah.
Bid to expunge evidence
At the end of today’s proceedings, the defendant’s lawyer, Rajan Navaratnam, orally applied to the court to have a huge chunk of Bell’s evidence expunged, on account that they are not correlated nor stated in the suit’s statement of claims.
“These are very pertinent facts (in Bell’s witness statement) which were not in the statement of claims, which means they could not have been addressed at the (defendants) statement of defence.
“Having not pleaded it (in the statement of claim) and having not addressed it at the statement of defence, I’m robbed of the opportunity to cross-examine these facts,” he said.
The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Colin Andrew Pereira, told the court that he was shocked by this application.
“I’ve been taken by surprise. He (Rajan) has come in prepared to object, but never gave us any (prior) notice. We have not finished our re-examination yet, so how can I even highlight these to the witness?
“He has not even completed his cross-examination, (and) I have not had the chance to re-examine, to clarify whether the issues have been pleaded or not. I’m not going to be rushed now, when he has had ample time to give (us) notice.
“With all due respect, the application is premature,” he said.
The judge then allowed Colin some time to prepare his reply against Rajan, which will be heard on Wednesday.
Earlier, the judge dismissed the plaintiffs’ application to amend their statement of claims and ordered all of them to pay the defendants RM5,000.
The trial continues tomorrow before Adam.
Case background
The 12 individuals filed a suit against Vinod and Yeap on May 31, 2023, seeking RM30 million in damages, inclusive of interest, from the defendants over several factors, including misrepresentation, fraud and breach of contract.
They claimed that Vinod had persuaded them to invest their money with him or with various of his companies, without disclosing his purported bankruptcy at the material time.
In their statements of claim, the plaintiffs said that they had queried Vinod on the bankruptcy matters via email on Sept 30, 2020, in which the latter “brushed it off” and appeared to suggest that one “Anwar” would attend to the matter and that he is aligned with Anwar.
The plaintiffs believe that “Anwar” refers to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
They had named Yeap as the second defendant in the case in alleging her to have conspired with Vinod to perpetrate fraud, breach of contract and misrepresentation against them.
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