Controversial Canadian-Indian businessman Ram Tumuluri, whose Indian electric buses deal has hit road blocks due to lack of international funding of US$8 billion, has a track record of running projects into the ground, according to a forensic investigation into his conduct and business practices published in several sections of the Indian press.
Media in India and America reported recently that Ram Tumuluri’s Causis Group has so far failed to raise the $8 billion needed to implement a Rs2,800-crore electric buses deal with the Mumbai authorities, putting public funds at risk. Forensic investigations have established that one of Ram’s partners in the same deal is a German national with known ties to Russian actors working for the interests of President Vladimir Putin. Results of the forensic investigations have been published in several Indian publications, some with links to the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP).
After the “American Daily Post” reported, quoting Indian authorities, that Sri Ram Tumuluri’s England & Wales registered Causis Group Ltd won in October 2021 a tender for supplying The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) with 1,400 electric vehicles but the whole deal is under threat over several issues related to the past dealings of Mr Ram Tumuluri.
According to the Indian publications, investigators in several jurisdictions have pieced together a pattern of Tumuluri’s modus operandi and how the controversial businessman has operated over the years to raise money with big promises and then make off with the money while running the projects into the pit.
In all his operations, Ram Tumuluri has a consistent pattern: he presents investors with deals he does not himself have the funds to invest in; portrays them as easy money opportunities; sets up an opaque offshore corporate structure; pulls in his associates and past business connections; obtains partial funding for the project; walks away from the project with any funds invested, having purposefully failed to file accounts; and moves on to an alternative project. By maintaining a low level of tangible assets (i.e. renting rather than owning property), even in litigious situations, the plaintiffs are unable to make claims against any significant resources owned in Tumuluri’s name. An analysis of public records shows Tumuluri has consistently failed to file annual returns in companies he incorporated in India, the US, Canada and Singapore thereby not accounting for where the funds have gone.
Ram Tumuluri was born in the Indian city of Hyderabad to Satynarayana Tumuluri and Bharti Tumuluri, a Brahmin middle class family with no business history. Ram Tumuluri has claimed he received an undergraduate degree from Osmania University in Culinary Arts. Osmania University said it does not offer culinary courses. The controversial businessman has claimed that he went to the London School of Economics (LSE) but the LSE administration has said it has no record of Ram Tumuluri ever enrolling in any discipline or ever graduating from the prestigious institution.
In India, Ram Tumuluri established the Ayucare brand under his company Holistic Healthcare. The businessman has fostered the impression that his company had taken the country by a storm; in reality one of the main spas was a bungalow in a residential area and the business folded after a few years after making huge losses. In 2008 his vehicle Tumuluri Hospitality Inc invested INR10m (equivalent to US$230k) in the company. At the time this was a significant investment considering only a few years before, Ram Tumuluri had left Marriott Hotels in Alberta, Canada to work as senior manager of the Wickaninnish Inn in Tofino, Canada. The investment ended in a failure and today there is no signage for Ayucare or Holistic Health and a banner advertising the leasing of the property hangs outside.
In the United States, Ram Tumuluri married Phrasavath Douangmala and they divorced in April 2003. His history in the US spans from approximately 1998 until 2004. He resided in Chicago, Illinois. In the divorce records, Tumuluri’s date of birth in the Milwaukee County divorce court documents is recorded as September rather than May 1975. It is unclear whether this was a deliberate attempt to avoid leaving a trail. Corporate registries in the US have Tumuluri as director of a real estate development company struck off in 2014 for not filing annual returns. Tumuluri is identified in US records with social security number 340 94 1501 issued in Illinois in 1998. Phrasavath Douangmala runs an assisted living facility named Douangmala Phrasavath Adult Family Home for individuals with disabilities, which appears to be located at her residence.
Corporate directorship checks record Tumuluri as previously the president and director of Venturex Hawaii Investment Corporation, incorporated in Hawaii in May 2003 and dissolved in December 2014 for not filing an annual report. The other individual listed, Mamoru Hamanishi, traces back to British Columbia and is linked to Tumuluri there.
Tumuluri subsequently moved to Canada, where his business practices set the hallmark for a pattern of behaviour repeated throughout his career to date. All his firms were dissolved due to non-filing of company accounts. Litigation records spell out the details of claims such as misuse of company funds and failure to provide accounting information to business partners. His projects all failed and left behind a string of claims by creditors ranging from mortgage providers to smaller unpaid suppliers. Notably, throughout his period in Canada, Tumuluri owned a property on only one occasion.
