The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a charge sheet against its former Deputy Director Gurnam Singh alleging that he misrepresented the case of investors of Unipay ponzi schemes in collusion with an advocate, and took a bribe of Rs 4.5 crore from the promoters of the firm, the agency said on Friday.
The charge sheet, filed in a sessions court on Wednesday under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), also mentions the names of Singh's wife Dalip Kaur and advocate Puneet Sharma, who was counsel of Unipay investors and represented the writ petitions before the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
The move came a day after the ED issued orders for attachment of Rs 4.8 crore worth of properties belonging to Singh, his wife and Sharma.
The probe agency said that Singh was in the habit of misusing his official position and power for his personal benefits, hence was repatriated back to his parent department on January 20, 2017.
"Singh extracted money from the investors through Sharma by misrepresenting and making false claims of his proximity to people in positions of power, authority and at the same time took bribe from the promoters of the ponzi schemes," said the ED.
"He had received bribe ranging between Rs 3.5 crore and Rs 4.5 crore from the accused persons with a fraudulent promise to settle the writ petition in the High Court as well as ongoing investigation in the instant case registered by the ED," said the agency.
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"The bribe illegally obtained by Singh was structured in the form of immovable properties in his name and of his wife and was later on projected as being untainted."
The ED said it had conducted searches on March 22 and 23 at the residences of Singh, Sharma and accused persons and recovered documents relating to possession of movable and immovable properties.
The FIRs were registered in Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh against the agents of Unipay2U Marketing Pvt Ltd and Unipaygateway2U Trading Pvt Ltd based in Chennai, and having offices in Bengaluru.
The companies had Managing Director Mugundham Gangam, a Malaysian national, besides other Indian directors.
The company floated online investment scheme on the basis of various complex marketing level techniques of referral and binary system.
The investors were lured with assured return of 21 per cent for 10 months. Initially, the company paid back the money to the investors to gain their confidence but after sometime it fled with the money of the investors.
The aggrieved investors approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2011 by filing various writ petitions against the company and its agents through advocate Sharma.
The High Court entrusted the investigation with ED Chandigarh in 2012 and the agency filed a case on March 7, 2012.
The first charge sheet in the case was filed on September 27, 2017 and the other one on July 17.
--IANS
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