Financial Technology India Limited founder Jignesh Shah was granted bail in the National Spot Exchange Limited scam involving around Rs 5,600 crore, reported PTI. A special court that deals with cases related to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act set his bail bond at Rs 2 lakh.
On July 12, Shah was arrested for not cooperating with the Enforcement Directorate. The investigating agency filed a 20,000-page chargesheet in the case in 2015. NSEL and 67 people in Mumbai were named in the document that included a money trail of Rs 3,721.22 crore. The agency observed that NSEL funds were "illegally ploughed into purchase of private properties", reported PTI. The agency had also registered a criminal case under the PMLA in 2010.
The Economic Offence Wing of Mumbai had arrested Shah in connection with the case in May 2014. After his first arrest, Shah resigned as the Managing Director of FTIL and became its Chairman-Emeritus. The central government has asked the state to auction attached assets worth Rs 6,116 crore to pay the investors who lost their money to the ponzi scheme.
The scam first came to light in August 2013, when NSEL had to suspend spot trading following instructions from the Ministry of Consumer Affairs asking it not to offer futures contracts. According to Economic Times, goods against which borrowers were raising money from 13,000 investors were virtually non-existent. Much of this money was either invested in real estate or siphoned off overseas.
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