The CBI on Friday arrested the Chairman-cum-Managing Director of Pearls Group Nirmal Singh Bhangoo and three other top officials of the Group in connection with the alleged Rs 45,000-crore scam in which 5.5 crore gullible investors were duped.
Bhangoo, CMD of PGF limited and ex-Chairman of Pearls Australasia Pty limited, along with Sukhdev Singh, MD and Promoter-Director of PACl, Gurmeet Singh, Executive Director (Finance) and Subrata Bhattacharya, ED in the PGF/PACl Ponzi Scheme Case, CBI sources said.
Senior CBI officials said the four executives were arrested after detailed questioning on Friday at the agency headquarters here.
The sources said during the questioning they were giving inconsistent statements and not cooperating with the probe following they were arrested.
“The case involves alleged collection of Rs 45,000 crore from about 5.5 crore investors all over the country. The case was registered under sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy) read with 420 (cheating) of IPC,” CBI Press Information Officer RK Gaur said.
The investors were lured with the promise of huge returns by the Group
companies.
CBI sources said arrests were made in connection with the case against officials of Pearls Agrotech Corporation ltd (PACl) and Pearls Golden Forest ltd (PGF) for allegedly raising investments from over 5.5 crore investors through collective investment scheme under the garb of sale and development of agricu
ltural land.
The agency’s probe into the allegations has shown that investors were issued bogus land allotment letters. In ponzi schemes, returns are given to investors from the money collected from other depositors in a pyramid-like structure.
CBI sources said that during the searches it had recovered documents which show benami properties worth thousands of crore in India and abroad.
The probe has revealed that PGF, on being directed by the High Court of Punjab and Haryana to wind up the scheme and refund the money to the investors, a similar fraudulent scheme was operated under the name of PACl with office at Barakhamba Road here, the CBI had alleged in its FIR.
Funds collected from new investors of PACl were used to repay the earlier investors of PGF to evade criminal prosecution.
Funds have been allegedly raised by the two companies through a vast network of lakhs of commission agents spread all over the country who were being paid hefty commissions for luring the investors, the sources added.