In another blow to Indian National Congress, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested former Karnataka Congress minister Roshan Baig for his alleged involvement in the infamous multi-crore I-Monetary Advisory (IMA) ponzi scam.
CBI spokesman R K Gaur was quoted saying in IANS report that “Baig was arrested after questioning him in the ongoing ponzi chit fund scam investigation and a competent court sent him to judicial custody for further interrogation,”.
Baig is one of the most important political leaders from the Congress in Karnataka and is a former 8-time legislator from the Shivajinagar assembly.
“Baig was summoned for interrogation to our office earlier in the day and taken into custody on the evidence collected against him in the scam that rocked the state in 2018-19,” a CBI source said earlier.
The CBI has also conducted a search and seizure operation in Baig’s house in the city earlier in the day.
When the I-Monetary Advisory (IMA) scam was unearthed, jewellery kingpin Mohammed Mansoor Khan alleged that he gave Baig Rs 400 crore ahead of the state assembly elections in April-May 2018 which Biag has strongly refuted.
The IMA scam is estimated to be Rs 4,000-crore ponzi chit fund scam that ruined the savings of many people when it was uncovered in June 2019.
Trouble began when hundreds of investors complained to city police that the chit fund firm stopped returning their deposits, including gold jewellery, cash and interest.
The then ruling Janata Dal-Secular-Congress government was forced to set up a special investigation team (SIT), however, when the BJP came to power, it initiated a CBI probe into the scam July 2019.
Mansoor Khan is currently lodged in the central jail on the city’s outskirts along with about 30 accused, including seven directors of the company. Khans as been booked by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for allegedly transferring funds to overseas banks through the hawala route.