BENGALURU: In his statement before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), prime accused and founder of I Monetary Advisory (IMA) Mohammed Mansoor Khan reportedly said that several powerful and influential people had “feasted on the corpse of IMA like maggots” after it was “exposed” by the Reserve Bank of India in 2015, sources said. These influential people include some top politicians and bureaucrats in various departments in Karnataka.
Mansoor also alleged that he did not “voluntarily” flee the country in June, but was reportedly asked to leave for some time by some officers and politicians, who had benefited from the IMA fraud.
“Mansoor’s allegations cannot be taken at face value because he is an accused in the multi-crore fraud. His charges need to be investigated thoroughly,” said an officer. “He reportedly conceded to investigating agencies that his business module was flawed and that IMA had become an easy source of money for people in power, after the RBI raised concerns about its flawed functioning and investments.”
Mansoor was running a ‘halal’ investment company under the cover of a Limited Liability Partnership to reportedly evade scrutiny under the Karnataka Protection of Interest of Depositors in Financial Establishments Act, 2004.
“No appropriate action or in-depth investigation was taken up against the ponzi scheme firm even after the RBI first sent an alert in 2015, the Income Tax raid in 2017 and another alert by the RBI in 2018,” he charged.
“In fact, in 2015, after the RBI’s notice, the government had stated that IMA or its directors cannot be prosecuted under the provisions of the KPIDFEA because it was an LLP company,” said the officer.
“Nothing moved even after a police investigation was ordered into the IMA fraud. They didn’t look deeper into the fraud because of obvious reasons. Mansoor has also alleged that Income Tax officers had also demanded their pound of flesh after the 2017 raid against IMA,” he added.
In 2018, after the RBI raised issues on the flawed LLP, the government handed over the matter to an assistant commissioner in the revenue department, for a thorough probe. “In November 2018, the department had issued a public notice, warning investors against IMA, following which Mansoor issued a public rejoinder and started releasing full page advertisements in newspapers. This itself could have set a multi-agency investigation into motion. The CID gave a report stating that it did not find any shortcomings and had not received any complaints from IMA partners/investors,” the officer added.