Bengaluru: Panic gripped Muslim-dominated Shivajinagar here as a major private company went bust and its founder-owner Mohammed Mansoor Khan allegedly said in an audio clip that he was ending his life as he was tired of bribing corrupt politicians and bureaucrats.
Karnataka is known for corruption, but the present one involving a bribe of Rs 400 crore seems to be emerging as the mother of all corruption cases.
Soon after the clip went viral, thousands of investors rushed to the office of I Monetary Advisory (IMA) Group on Lady Curzon Road in Shivajinagar wanting their money back.
Police were quick to set up five special counters at Commercial Street police station which received a whopping 3,300 complaints from IMA investors in a span of five hours.
“Going by the number of complaints, this appears to be the biggest scam to have rocked the city in recent times,” a police officer said. In fact, cops had to set up special counters after Lady Curzon Road turned into a battle zone, with angry investors taking to the streets.
In the clip addressed to the city police commissioner, Khan alleged that Shivajinagar MLA and Congress leader R Roshan Baig had taken Rs 400 crore from him and refused to return the same.
He also said there was a threat to his life. Baig denied the allegations and said he is neither a stakeholder nor a partner in IMA.
Name of another minister, who allegedly had a property transaction with IMA, is also under cloud. A special police team has been formed to trace Khan and others, besides looking into his suicide plan claim.
The case took a political twist when the opposition BJP used the opportunity to hit out at the Congress-HD Kumaraswamy alliance. The party tweeted a picture of the Chief Minister with Mansoor Khan.
The accompanying post read: "Good to know you have known this fraud for a long time. Should help you catch him soon. Your job is to catch the fraudster & not cry victim on twitter. Get your priorities right".
The Chief Minister responded: "It''s sad that @BJP4Karnataka stoops low again to misguide and demean by using an old picture out of context. This has always been the BJP troll strategy. #IMAfraud is a serious issue and the culprits will be punished."
Kumaraswamy said the case has been handed over to the Central Crime Branch and he has spoken to the state home minister on the issue. The matter is being taken very seriously and action would be taken against the guilty, he said.
According to sources, Khan had managed to establish a rapport with all politicians across parties and even the Muslim clergy as the transactions were done as per Islamic banking, which gave him the certification of the transactions being halal (permissible).
Started in 2006, IMA had promised 14%-18% monthly returns on investments before its operations collapsed into a Ponzi scheme. The company had collected over Rs 2,000 crore investments from the public, mostly members of the Muslim community. IMA had diversified into jewellery, real estate, bullion trading, pharmacy, publishing, education and healthcare sectors.
IMA founder Mohammed Mansoor Khan growth was amazingly swift. Out of the blue he started the IMA group in 2006, which started showing results in 2008. According to those who were studying his business model, his way of making people invest money was as per the sharia.
Those who started investing since 2008 are said to have got back their capital as the dividend per month was as high as 17%, which dropped to 3% and 1% in recent months. It''s said depositors panicked when the flow of dividends stopped since two months and applications were filed seeking withdrawal of funds.
By Shankar Raj
