The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday conducted raids at the premises of Congress leader and and former Karnataka minister BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan and Roshan Baig, a former member and MLA of the party, reported The Hindu.
The searches were a part of an investigation into the I Monetary Advisory, or IMA, scam in Bengaluru. The multi-crore fraud, which came to light in June 2019, pertains to a ponzi scheme in which thousands of investors were said to have been cheated.
IMA jewels proprietor Mohammed Mansoor Khan was accused of running a ponzi scheme in Karnataka that has allegedly duped more than 30,000 people of Rs 5,000 crore. People from Bengaluru, Hyderabad, New Delhi, and Tamil Nadu are said to have invested into the company. Mohammed Mansoor Khan was arrested in July 2019.
A team of over 100 officials of the Enforcement Directorate on Thursday reached Bengaluru from New Delhi for the raids. The agency conducted the searches at six properties, including two houses in Shivajinagar, connected to Baig. It has also raided the Chamarajpet residence of Khan, apart from offices of National Travels, a firm Baig owns.
In July, the Karnataka government had provisionally attached the immovable and movable properties of Baig under the Karnataka Protection of interest of Depositors in Financial Establishment Act, 2004, reported The New Indian Express. This was after an order of the Karnataka High Court, directing the seizure of Baig’s immovable assets.
On June 12, the High Court had criticised the Karnataka government for the delay in taking a decision on attaching Baig’s properties, according to The New Indian Express.
The allegations
IMA jewels proprietor Mohammed Mansoor Khan has been accused of running a ponzi scheme in Karnataka that has allegedly duped more than 30,000 people of Rs 5,000 crore. People from Bengaluru, Hyderabad, New Delhi, and Tamil Nadu are said to have invested into the company. He was arrested in July 2019.
The Bengaluru-based company had been collecting investments for several years, assuring investors of returns of over 3% per month.
Hundreds of investors had gathered outside the investment firm’s offices in Bengaluru in June 2019, claiming that they had not been provided returns on their investments for more than two months.
Mansoor Khan, in an audio clip, had accused Baig of not returning Rs 400 crore taken from the IMA before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Baig has also been accused of helping Mansoor Khan to flee the country after the alleged scam broke out, The News Minute reported. However, the former Congress leader has denied the allegations and claimed that the audio clip was fake.
Baig was, however, suspended by the Congress in June last year for alleged anti-party activities. He had criticised the party for its dismal performance in the Lok Sabha elections.
Zameer Ahmed Khan is being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate as he sold a property on Serpentine Street in Bengaluru’s Richmond Town to Mansoor Khan, according to The Hindu. The former Karnataka minister has, however, denied having any further business dealings with Mansoor Khan.
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