Spl court freezes chitfund stash worth Rs 1.6 cr

As lakhs of depositors suffer from the menace of ponzi schemes, a special PMLA court here has ordered freezing of Rs 1.63 crore in bank accounts of owners of chitfund companies running in Haryana and Punjab which have allegedly cheated people.

This is one of the few cases where the illegal earnings of chitfund companies have been blocked by attaching them under criminal provisions of law.

The court has termed the money, totalling Rs 16,303,509.59 and kept in nine bank accounts in Bangalore and Ambala, as "proceeds of crime and involved in money laundering" and has attached the amount paving way for confiscation of this amount by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

The case dates back to 2011 when Haryana and Punjab police registered a case of cheating and fraud against a number of owners and directors in Panipat, Gurdaspur and Pathankot for cheating lakhs of investors by floating firms named "Unipay 2U Marketing Pvt Ltd, Unigateway2U Trading Pvt Ltd and principal company based in Malaysia -- Best Genius SDN BHD".

The ED took over the case in 2012 suspecting large scale money laundering and blackmoney and registered an offence under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

"It appears that the provisional attachment order (issued by ED in January this year) attaching the balances in the bank accounts are nothing but a proceeds of crime and are involved in money laundering," the June 4 order of Member Adjudicating Authority (PMLA) S K Sharma said.