Sram & Mram - Invested Billions, - But Does It Have The Money

7/13/23, 6:54 PM Sram & Mram "invested billions," but does it have the money?
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Scott Shuey · 4h ago · 9 min read

The convicted fraudster backing 5ire, ‘India’s 105th unicorn’
In May 2022, headlines began to appear in reputable media outlets about how Sram & Mram, a
relatively unknown business group, was investing billions in various sectors.
Those investments included a US$100 million investment in Dubai blockchain firm 5ire, an initial
investment of US$3.64 billion in a semiconductor fabrication plant in India, and a US$100 million
investment in air cargo business SpiceXpress.
Image credit: Timmy Loen
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Sram & Mram also announced it was investing in real estate.
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But an investigation last year by Tech in Asia raised concerns that Sram & Mram did not have the
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ability to fund these investments. Details of the company’s finances were difficult to find – unusual LITE
for a company claiming to be a UK-headquartered conglomerate with 10 companies, over US$800
million
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Tech in Asia looked into the firm’s claims but could not validate many of them.
Almost a year later, Tech in Asia found more questionable details about Sram & Mram, including its
legal woes in the US. One of them is a recent lawsuit from its own counsel: New York-based Chalos
& Co., which represented Sram & Mram in a fraud case filed in California.
“Syndicates,” spice, and semiconductors

Now, however, Sailesh Lachu Hiranandani, Sram & Mram’s chairman and founder, is changing his
tune.
In a interview with Tech in Asia, he said 5ire told him that it does not “need” the second tranche of
its US$100 million investment.
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Sram & Mram CEO Sailesh Lachu Hiranandani (third from left) with 5ire’s co-founders / Photo credit: 5ire
He added that Sram & Mram did not inject US$100 million into SpiceXpress. Instead, it is leading a
“syndicate” that’s raising the funds.
“We are raising money for them. We are not giving them money from our pocket,” Hiranandani
says.
Having said that, he then seemed to reverse himself and claimed that Sram & Mram can secure
funds for SpiceXpress by issuing corporate bonds.
“We can raise the bonds according to the project we are doing,” he says. The bonds will be rated by
merchant banks, but Hiranandani declined to give more details.
Tech in Asia sent SpiceXpress multiple emails asking for comment, but the company did not reply.
As for the semiconductor fabrication plant, it is now only a joint venture with the Indian state of
Odisha, according to Hiranandani. AsUpgrade of now,for unlimited
there are noaccess.
banks or firms capable of producing
semiconductors involved in the venture.

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Describing Sram & Mram’s role as “technical partners,” Hiranandani said it is looking for
technology
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“will join hands with us and do a tie-up.”
Tech in Asia emailed officials in Odisha’s Ganjam district asking for additional information, but our
queries went unanswered.
Claims, concerns, and cases

Concrete information about Sram & Mram is difficult to come by. According to its website, the
group is headquartered in the UK and has offices in Cambodia, South Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia,
Bahrain, Georgia, India, and Bangladesh.
The group also touts extensive main product lines, which include “agro-products and information
technology, with footprints spread across multifarious services, verticals and operations viz., neural
networks, artificial intelligence, hedge fund management, forex management, hospitality services
and solutions, information technology, media and publishing with its online news portal national
mindset, embedded systems and infrastructure.”
It claims to have US$800 million in “turnover” but has not released any information on revenues or
profits. Scant public data does not indicate revenue anywhere close to the figure cited by the
company.
Hiranandani appears to live in Kuala Lumpur, although various public documents list him as
Indian, Malaysian, and Singaporean. One document even lists him as Cambodian.
Sram & Mram’s website has more details about him, such as his personal net worth of “over USD 1
billion.”
It also states that “he invests in futuristic technology primarily in the energy harvesting
technologies, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence.”
Concerns about Hiranandani go back decades.
A 2000 newspaper report from New Zealand lists Sailesh Hiranandani as a defendant in a property
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scam. In theNews
case, he was accused of stealing NZ$22 million from an Indian businessman. The LITE
Herald reported that Hiranandani and a woman named Sonali Joshi used the money to rent a
mansion,
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In 2010, Hiranandani was convicted in Hong Kong on five counts of fraud. Court papers show that
he was ordered to serve two years (concurrently) for each charge, but he told Tech in Asia that he
did not serve any time.
Hiranandani dismissed the convictions, saying they stemmed from “some discontented people”
looking for someone to blame during bad economic times.
“I was close to bankruptcy at that particular time,” he says. “I faced legal problems in those
particular days, but I did my best. I paid the money back to them.”
The firm Just Vision Media was implicated in the Hong Kong case. Hiranandani and Thomas
Peeddiakkal Parambil Mathew, who is also director of financial operations and a board member for
Sram & Mram Group, were both listed as board members at Just Vision, which has been closed for
nearly two decades.
In both the New Zealand and Hong Kong cases, Hiranandani was ordered to pay restitution.
Taking the gloves off

Sram & Mram also faces at least two legal cases in the US.
In March 2022, the company was sued in California by iCure Pharmaceutical, a Korean company.
The US$12 million lawsuit accused Sram & Mram of fraud, claiming that it knowingly delivered the
wrong type of rubber gloves.
New York-based Chalos & Co. represented and successfully defended Sram & Mram in the
California case, forcing iCure to go into arbitration. But the law firm then sued its former client in
federal court for failing to pay its legal bill of $US124,000. Lawyers for iCure told Tech in Asia that
the arbitration proceedings are ongoing.
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Walletz4u booth / Photo credit: Sram & Mram

However, it is unclear who is now representing Sram & Mram in either case, given that Chalos
withdrew as counsel after suing its ex-client. A judge in New York had instructed Sram & Mram to
find new legal counsel, but the court still recognized the company as “in pro per” as of June 14. The
term is the legal designation for a company that is representing itself without a lawyer.
Meanwhile, iCure’s attorneys also said they did not know who was representing Sram & Mram in
the California litigation.
That’s an order
A second company has now come forward and accused Sram & Mram of fraud.
In an interview with Tech in Asia, Stoked Earth CEO Sam Womack said his company had also lost
money to Sram & Mram, which failed to deliver his order of rubber gloves.
Womack, who worked as a broker for medical supplies during the Covid-19 pandemic, said a fellow
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broker had introduced LITE
2022, which went through “without a hitch.”
After that initial transaction, he “felt confident” in Sram & Mram and even spoke to Hitanshu
Heera, who identified himself as the group’s CEO.
Womack said Heera pushed him to quickly send payment for a larger order.
“They were rushing the wire through,” Womack says. “And I was like, ‘Well, I just did the business
with them and picked up the gloves. And I’ve seen them in person. What’s the worst that could
happen?’”
He placed the second order on May 6, 2022, sending US$76,000 to a Maybank account number
that documents show was owned by Sram & Mram Resources Berhad, the group’s Malaysian arm.
Womack, who is based in Austin, Texas, said he sent trucks to pick up the gloves at a warehouse in
Carson, a city located just south of Los Angeles, on May 10.
The warehouse prevented Womack from picking up the gloves, so he demanded a refund on May 19.
He said that Heera claimed Sram & Mram was involved in a lawsuit with the warehouse, so it had
the money. As such, a refund was not possible.
At one point, Heera even claimed that Sram & Mram accounts had been frozen, Womack says. He
added that eventually, Heera blocked his number.
The purchase order for the second shipment lists the seller as Walletz4U, a glove brand under Sram
& Mram Group. According to its LinkedIn account, Walletz4U is the “world’s largest gloves OEM;
one of the largest glove manufacturers and resellers in the ASEAN.”
Sram & Mram also claimed it was opening 12 glove manufacturing facilities across Malaysia,
Vietnam, and India in 2023. Tech in Asia was not able to verify the existence of these facilities.
“There is no money in the system” Upgrade for unlimited access.
Womack’s case is similar to the complaint logged by iCure Pharmaceutical. Like Stoked Earth, the
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Korean company LITE
for the same gloves, food-grade gloves arrived instead.
Womack said he has been fighting with Sram & Mram for over a year to get his money back. He
spoke to Malaysia-based Hemalata Arumugam, who also claimed to be CEO of Sram & Mram
Group. According to messages seen by Tech in Asia, Arumugam has since resigned as CEO.
In November 2022, Womack asked Arumugam if a payment schedule could be arranged, but she
told him “there is no money in the system.” She also sent him a message saying that Sram & Mram,
which claims to have done billions in investments, “doesn’t have sufficient balance at this moment
with all the ongoing legal cases.”
Arumugam eventually told him that company chairman Hiranandani was working on a way to pay
him back. Womack says he has still not been reimbursed.
When talks broke down and Sram & Mram stopped communicating with Womack, he took his case
to LinkedIn, complete with screenshots of his text exchanges with the company. He said he
considered suing Sram & Mram but thought that the legal fees would likely cost more than whatever
amount he could recover.
Hiranadani disputes these allegations. However, he also seems to admit that the gloves were not
surgical ones, which was the basis for the fraud accusations.
“A small issue came out – the gloves have got food labels also,” he told Tech in Asia.
Lawyers for iCure declined to speak with Tech in Asia about the matter, but Womack said that
surgical gloves do not carry food labels. He explained that while all surgical gloves are good for
handling food, gloves made specifically for food are not surgical quality.
Hiranadani also contests the lawsuit with Chalos, saying that Sram & Mram’s contract with the law
firm included a US$25,000 work stop-order. That meant Chalos was supposed to halt all work
when its bill reached that amount.
However, when asked to see a copy of the contract, Hiranadani, told Tech in Asia we would have to
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contact his agents LITE
US.
Who’s the CEO?

Hiranadani said he is unaware of the issues with Stoked Earth or Womack’s attempts to recover his
money. Moreover, while the Sram & Mram chairman admitted that Heera’s name sounded familiar,
he claims to not know him. Yet when Womack talked to Heera, the latter introduced himself as the
group’s CEO.
But Hiranadani did remember that Arumugam had resigned as CEO, although he could not say who
the current one was.
Despite Hirandani saying he doesn’t not know Heera, text messages supplied to Tech in Asia show
that both Arumugam and Heera were in communication with each other. Arumugam also claimed
in the messages that she had informed Hiranadani of the issues with Womack.
In fact, Hiranadani seemed to be distancing himself from all of Sram & Mram’s troubles. He pointed
out that since he is just the company’s chairman, most of the details are handled by his staff.
“No, I am not allowed to make any decisions,” he contends. “Decisions are made only by the CEOs
and directors of the company.”
However, Hiranadani did not provide names for any additional personnel. Tech in Asia made
multiple attempts to seek comment from Arumugam and Heera, but they did not respond.
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Editing by Terence Lee and Eileen C. Ang

(And yes, we’re serious about ethics and transparency. More information here.)
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I'm a journalist who covers the wild world of crypto. My travels have taken me from San Jose to
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7/13/23, 6:54 PM Sram & Mram "invested billions," but does it have the money?

PREMIUM VISUALS VIDEOS NEWSLETTERS C AT E G O R I E S MARKETS FREE N

Scott Shuey · 4h ago · 9 min read

Image credit: Timmy Loen

“Syndicates,” spice, and semiconductors

PREMIUM VISUALS VIDEOS NEWSLETTERS C AT E G O R I E S MARKETS FREE N

semiconductors involved in the venture.

“will join hands with us and do a tie-up.”

Claims, concerns, and cases

Taking the gloves off

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Walletz4u booth / Photo credit: Sram & Mram

Who’s the CEO?

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Editing by Terence Lee and Eileen C. Ang

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