Controversial Canadian-Indian businessman Sri Ram Tumuluri, whose Indian electric buses deal has hit road blocks due to lack of international funding of $8 billion, has a track record of running projects into the ground, according to a forensic investigation into his conduct and business practices published by 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. North India Daily and Mumbai Herald have published the detailed report into practises of Ram Tumuluri.
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 Tumuluri.
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, according to Indian press.
Consistent pattern:
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.
Indian failures:
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.
US connection:
In the United States, Ram Tumuluri married Phrasavath Douangmala and they divorced in April 2003. In the divorce records, Tumuluri’s date of birth 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.
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.
Canada connection:
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.
Federal and state documents in Canada record Tumuluri having incorporated seven companies since 2006. Only one remains active; the remaining six were dissolved for failure to file company records.
Malta killing:
Ram Tumuluri has made global headlines due to his involvement in the doomed Vital Global Healthcare (VGH) project. It was Ram Tumuluri who sold the idea of the healthcare project to the Maltese government, won contracts for three major hospitals and then struggled to fulfill any of the promises he made and walked away from the project in the usual pattern of behaviour. But it’s the assassination of the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana-Galizia, who was vocal in her accusation of corruption between the government and Tumuluri in the awarding of the project, which has made people cautious to speak on the subject. She was the first journalist to expose Ram Tumuluri’s murky business background and lack of healthcare credentials; and she made the link between the BVI network of companies and his partner Mark Pawley’s lack of funding credibility.
Dubai base:
Tumuluri claims to have two UAE entities, Mount Everest Global Trading and VGH Dubai. Records show he did attempt to raise funding in the UAE for the Malta PPP project but this was not successful. He was facilitated in this through the office and contacts of Mohammed Hanif Shaikh, Chairman of Emirates Holding Group. Both companies have shut their operations after failures.
The Russia connection:
Investigation in an American publication has revealed that Sri Ram Tumuluri’s partner in the Indian Rs2,800-crore electric buses deal, Thomas-Christan Seitz is known for close ties with the Kremlin and has worked for the interests of Russia’s feared spy agency KGB – now called the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).
Two years ago, Ram Tumuluri’s England & Wales registered Causis Group Ltd won a tender for supplying The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) with 1,400 electric vehicles. Causis, registered in the UK but without any operations, is wholly owned by Tumuluri. Its operating entity is India-registered Causis E-Mobility Pvt Ltd.
India electric buses deal:
According to a forensic study by the publication, Causis acquired a 100% stake of German-registered Eurabus GmbH in September 2021. Eurabus was founded and formerly owned by Thomas-Christan Seitz. Eurabus has previously claimed to be in the process of opening EV factories in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and possibly Tanzania.
Causis Group Ltd was incorporated in England and Wales on 11 June 2021 under company number 13452464 and the company is 100% owned by Jersey-incorporated New Horizons Investments Limited, which in turn is 100% owned by Tumuluri, papers show. Causis Group’s statutory Directors are Tumuluri, Peter Knez, Charles Paul Rowan, Thomas-Christian Seitz and Gary Anthony Dugan.
Examination of original German corporate filings reveals that Eurabus GmbH was registered on 02 July 2015 under company number HRB 168446B. Eurabus GmbH’s initial share capital was €25,000 and was 100% owned by Euracom Group GmbH, a company managed and controlled by Seitz. On 31 October 2019, Eurabus GmbH increased its share capital to €1.105 million. On 30 September 2021 Causis Group Ltd acquired 100% stake in Eurabus GmbH from Euracom Group GmbH.
Seitz grew up in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) and attended the infamous Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), where 50% of the graduates are alleged to have gone into the Soviet diplomatic service and 50% into the KGB, said the publication.
A journalist who knew of Seitz and wrote a story about him and his activities in 2008 noted that Seitz graduated from the MGIMO in 1992. The journalist’s article, entitled “The Russians are Coming” in the daily newspaper Die Welt, described Seitz as associated with two Russian “security foundations” closely linked with Vladimir Putin.
In the article, Seitz is described as “Vice President” of the “Security Academy Waldmünchen” in Bavaria that was a branch of the “Academy for Legal Order, Security, and Defense Matters” in Moscow. The Academy was founded by Vladimir Putin himself. Putin is described as “Member No. 1”.
The article also states that Seitz and the academy were closely connected to an organisation called the “International Counterterrorism Association,” also in Moscow. That organisation in Germany, the article notes, can be connected to Karlshorst, Berlin where the KGB had its headquarters.
Funding failures:
Ram Tumuluri’s failing that matches VGH Malta failure scandal is his latest The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) project he signed with the Indian govt in October 2021. The project was set to start within two months but to date there is no sign of the project making any headway and Indian authorities have briefed media that Ram Tumuluri has failed to raise funds of around $8 billion to implement the Rs2,800-crore electric buses deal with the Mumbai authorities.
Indian govt sources told a US publication The American Daily website: “Causis is using the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Maharashtra Government as a security but banks are demanding sovereign guarantee from the state government, which has not been approved by the government. Causis is struggling to arrange debt and their efforts are ongoing but it is evident Causis has so far failed to find any credible lenders. On paper, there are lots of promises but there is zero delivery so far.”
The Mumbai authority fears that Ram Tumuluri may defraud his investors and business partners as Causis does not have manufacturing or technical capabilities.
According to an article by Indian news outlet The Indian Express, Causis won a tender for supplying The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) with 1,400 electric buses. In October 2021, the Maharashtra state government, in the presence of environment minister Aaditya Thackeray and industry minister Subhash Desai, signed the contract for Rs 2,800 crore ($370,000).
Maltese news outlet The Shift News reported Tumuluri’s Electrical Vehicles venture in an article titled “Ram Tumuluri suspected of replicating ‘fraudulent’ Malta VGH model in Mumbai” – a reference to a big health scare scandal in Malta.
