The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a supplementary charge sheet against two of the accused in the multi-crore I Monetary Advisory (IMA) Ponzi scam on October 5.
In the supplementary charge sheet filed at a special court, the CBI has named two associates of IMA kingpin Mohammed Mansoor Khan, including a 65-year-old cleric Mohammed Haneef Afsar Azeezi and Khaleemulla Jamal (40), who is a close aide of Khan.
Azeezi is an Imam (person who leads prayers in a mosque) at Masjid-e-Beoparian in Shivajinagar, where IMA was headquartered. Before the case was handed over to the CBI, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) handling the IMA scam had arrested Azeezi for promoting IMA in the Muslim community by asking people to join the firm claiming that it was their religious responsibility.
According to the reports, he told people that if they invested in IMA they will receive costly gifts from the company, including a bungalow worth Rs 3 crore in HBR Layout. He urged Muslims in Bengaluru to support Khan and make him one of the city's biggest business tycoons," reports TOI.
The SIT had also arrested Jamal, an Urdu teacher who ran a cement block manufacturing unit at a farmhouse in Malur village of Kolar. Khan had allegedly purchased the land for the manufacturing unit by the money people had invested in IMA. Jamal had built a hidden bunker inside the land, where he used to store the money and jewellery that was transferred to him by Khan. The bunker was always guarded by private bouncers.
In its first charge sheet, CBI had named Khan and 19 of his associates, including 7 company directors, 5 members, an auditor, an unnamed person and 5 private companies for alleged criminal conspiracy and other charges.
Soon after Mansoor Khan was arrested by the investigating agency, he had named several top-level officials and politicians responsible for the scam. He had given the list of people who had taken money from him to run the scam. Currently, he is in judicial custody at Bengaluru's Parapanna Agrahara Central Prison.
