Mangaluru: Niveus Solutions Pvt. Ltd., an award-winning Google Cloud partner on Thursday inaugurated its largest office in the country here in Mangaluru.

Sprawling across 16,000 sq. ft, with a seating capacity of 210 staff, it is the largest office of the company in India. The company has around 300 employees working from various locations in India and Singapore.

Speaking after the inauguration of the new office, actor Rakshith Shetty said he was surprised to see Mangaluru and Udupi becoming base for a global cloud engineering organization such as Niveus. He said there was lot of untapped potential in the region, be it in technology, medicine, or even arts. When the talent gets access to the right infrastructure, there was no limit to what they could achieve, he said.

Niveus CEO Suyog Shetty said the organization has seen tremendous growth in business and operations in recent times, registering an over 300% growth year on year. The Mangaluru office offers opportunities to software professionals in the region where the immense pool of talent is available from the education hub. The setup is another key step to attracting and retaining the best of talents in the region, he said.

Niveus has been empowering industry leaders, including top private banks and leading asset management companies, and customers to leverage cloud technologies and harness the power of cloud services to build resilient infrastructures that scale. It recently expanded to the ASEAN region, setting up a hub in Singapore and onboarding new customers.

Niveus was funded in 2013 by Suyog Shetty, Rashmi George, Roshan Bava, and Mohsin Khan.

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New Delhi, Aug 13 (PTI): The Enforcement Directorate said on Wednesday it has arrested a woman, who claims to be an actor and a cosmetologist, under the anti-money laundering law in a case of alleged fraud and misrepresentation.

The agency said the purported links of the woman, Sandeepa Virk, with a Reliance Group executive, Angarai Natarajan Sethuraman (President, Corporate Affairs), are also under its scanner. Sethuraman, in a statement, denied any connection with Virk or any transactions related to her.

Virk was taken into custody under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on Tuesday after searches were conducted against her and her associates in Delhi and Mumbai over the last two days.

A special court sent her to the ED's custody till August 14, the agency said. The woman claims to be the owner of a skin care products selling website named hyboocare.com, which the ED claimed was a "front" for money laundering.

She and her associates are being probed for allegedly exerting undue influence through "misrepresentation" and "defrauding" individuals by soliciting money under false pretences.

According to an Instagram ID of Virk, she is an actor and entrepreneur and the founder of the said website.

The federal agency said in a statement that the woman was also "in touch with" Sethuraman, former director of erstwhile Reliance Capital Limited.

She was communicating with him regarding "illegal liaisoning", the ED claimed, adding that the searches at Sethuraman's residence "confirmed" these allegations.

"Besides, diversion of funds for personal benefit has also been unearthed during the course of the search action," it said.

The ED alleged that public money worth about Rs 18 crore belonging to Reliance Commercial Finance Limited (RCFL) was disbursed to Sethuraman in 2018 by "flouting" prudent lending norms.

The funds were lent under terms that allowed a deferment of the principal amount as well as the interest, with multiple waivers granted and no due diligence conducted, it said.

The ED claimed that besides this, a home loan of Rs 22 crore was provided by Reliance Capital Limited by "violating" the prudential norms. "A large part of these loans are seen to have been eventually siphoned off and remained unpaid," it alleged.

Sethuraman, in a statement, dismissed the allegations as "baseless". He denied any connection with Virk or any transactions related to her.

Detailing about Virk's web portal, the agency said it purportedly sold FDA-approved beauty products. However, the ED said the products listed on the website have been found to be non-existent and the portal lacks a user registration option and is plagued by persistent payment gateway issues.

A scrutiny of the website uncovered minimal social-media engagement, an inactive WhatsApp contact number and an absence of transparent organisational details, all of which reinforce the finding of "non-genuine" commercial activity, the ED claimed.

"These factors, including limited product range, inflated pricing, false claims of FDA approval and technical inconsistencies, indicate that the website serves as a front for laundering funds," it said.

Another social media-hosted bio data of the woman said she is a certified cosmetologist.

The ED said several "incriminating" documents were seized during the searches and the statement of a man named Farrukh Ali, stated to be an associate of Virk, was recorded.

The money-laundering case stems from an FIR lodged by the Punjab Police.

Sethuraman said that the home loan he received from Reliance Capital was granted following due process and was secured by the property offered as collateral.