The CBI’s ongoing action against Pearls Group and Rose Valley has thrown up interesting facts about their owners Nirmal Singh Bhangoo and Gautam Kundu. Together, through their pan-India operations, the two groups operating chit fund companies duped crores of investors of nearly Rs60,000 crore. They own over 3,000 acres of land besides nearly 4,500 bank accounts.
Bhangoo, the bigger fraudster of the two, and Kundu had humble beginnings. Bhangoo started off as a milk seller and Kundu took over Rose Valley that was set up by his elder brother, who along with his son and wife died in a freak accident. Both the groups have been facing action from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED), besides the CBI.
Both Bhangoo and Kundu have a fascination for real estate and invested in hotels, colleges, educational institutions besides television news channels and newspapers. Kundu also has a passion for luxury cars and owns 150 of them.
The Pearls Group owns a whopping 1,841 acres of agricultural land worth nearly Rs700 crore in Haryana, besides 44 commercial properties in Gurgaon whose sale deed value is Rs92.5 crore.
The group has 66 offices in upscale Connaught Place in Delhi, besides 600 acres in the national Capital. The group also operates a medical college hospital in Patiala and an educational trust in Chandigarh. The group ran trusts for medical colleges, hospitals and other educational institutions.
As many as 1,300 “suspect” bank accounts of the company, its directors and associated firms are under the scanner even as the CBI has frozen assets (mostly Fixed Deposits) to the tune of Rs280 crore. In addition, Rs108 crore has been deposited with the Delhi High Court.
The agency has seized 20,000 property documents showing investments to the tune of Rs5,000 crore. The group also has offshore investments, including in Australia.
The group also operated television news channel P7. Present estimates by the CBI suggest it has duped 5.5 crore investors to the tune of Rs45,000 crore. Kolkata-based Rose Valley Group owned by its CMD Gautam Kundu allegedly duped investors of over Rs15,000 crore in the last few years.
Kundu owns 150 luxury cars, including a dozen imported high-end ones, over 3,078 bank accounts with deposits beyond Rs300 crore, 700 acres of land spread across 12 States, 23 hotels.
The ED said it suspects that Rose Valley owns over 1,000 acres of land. The group operated from 900 offices spread across West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Assam, Punjab, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Rajasthan, and Andhra Pradesh.
The Rose Valley Group operated collective investment schemes offering plots of land or accommodation in the hotels run by sister companies to gullible investors or refund of the invested money with hefty interests if the investors did not avail the offers. One of the group companies mopped up Rs 2,016.32 crore by March 31, 2011.
After illegally amassing the wealth from collective schemes, Kundu diversified into other businesses including film production, a newspaper, a television channel and a jewellery chain among others. Rose Valley was also a lead sponsor for Kolkata Knight Riders.
In 2009, Kundu established Rose Valley Media and Entertainment Wing, a public limited company, to launch television channels, radio stations and cable networks. Soon after, it started operating a 24-hour entertainment channel, Ruposhi Bangla, television news channels like News Time, News Time Assam, Odisha Time and Khabar 365 Din. It also started operating music channel Dhoom Music and movie channel Dhoom Cinema.