The I Monetary Advisory (IMA) kingpin, Mohammed Mansoor Khan, was brought back to Bengaluru on Saturday morning, after he was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Special Investigation Team (SIT) in Delhi, on Friday.
Khan will be taken to the ED office in Shantinagar where he will be questioned by the officials over the IMA scam and the people involved in it. He will also be produced before the special court on Saturday, where a case has been registered against him under the KPID Act (Karnataka Protection of Interest of Depositors in Financial Establishments).
The SIT sleuths had initially planned to first take Khan to Mangaluru and then to Bengaluru. Their plans changed as the ED had issued a look-out notice against him. The SIT handed Khan over to the ED as they were supposed to get the custody first.
The SIT, headed by Additional Commissioner of Police (crime) B R Ravikanthe Gowda and DCP S Girish, probing the IMA scam had located Khan in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and sent a team of four officials to Dubai during the first week of July. In a covert operation, the SIT officials traced his hideout in Dubai and convinced Khan to return back to India.
Khan is the main accused behind the multi-crore Ponzi scam that was orchestrated by IMA. The company cheated nearly 40,000 of its investors to the tune of over Rs 2,500 crores. Khan had an elaborate plan of defrauding the people of Karnataka and other neighbouring states with his Ponzi scheme as a forefront for his other businesses.
Khan had fled to the UAE in June after receiving his visa on May 5 through METT Travels. He acquired nearly Rs 20 crores from the directors of his firm before escaping and also released an audiotape alleging politicians and corrupt government officials of taking money from him and not returning it back.
Khan had earlier named many of the political bigwigs and government authorities of being part of the scam. He said that the politicians backed him since the inception of IMA in 2006.
On June 23, Khan had released a video in which he claimed that he wished to return to India and co-operate with the police. He said that he feared for his and his family's safety. Similarly, on July 15 he had released another video in which he said that he will be back in India within 24 hours as his health conditions were not good. He claimed that he had three heart blocks and needed to undergo surgery.
Khan had requested the officers to let him release a video to get sympathy from the investors. The investigators revealed that though he was diabetic, he had no other health issues and the video was only a ploy to gain his investor's sympathy, reported Deccan Herald.
The SIT was all set to return to India with the absconder Khan but their flight was delayed due to some technical errors. They had to postpone their journey to July 18.
