IMA chief brought to B'luru, in ED custody till July 23

The Prevention of Money Laundering Act Court in Bengaluru on Saturday granted the custody of Mohammed Mansoor Khan, the prime accused in the I Monetary Advisory (IMA) multi-crore Ponzi scam, to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) sleuths till Tuesday.

The Karnataka SIT was also present at the court seeking Khan’s custody on the grounds that they had already arrested 23 accused in the case and his interrogation would establish links between him and the arrested co-accused.

However, the court granted Khan’s custody to ED until Tuesday after which the accused will be produced again before the court for SIT’s custody.

ED sleuths who took custody of Khan from the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi on Friday, produced him before a magistrate for a transit warrant to bring him to Bengaluru. Khan was brought to the court amid tight security with at least 200 police personnel turning the City Civil and Sessions Court into a fortress.

Three bus loads of Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP) personnel were present in the court as a large number of aggrieved investors were expected to come to court. Khan was whisked into the court hall around 12.45 pm and the hearing went on for an hour after which the ED sleuths took him to their Shantinagar office.

During interrogation, he will be confronted with documentary evidence the agency had collected on June 28, when they provisionally attached his immovable property worth Rs 197 crore along with cash deposits of Rs 12 crore from IMA’s numerous bank accounts and investments that were frozen.

Around 46,000 complaints have been registered against him. A few aggrieved investors told this newspaper that they were relieved as the police brought him from Dubai by avoiding the legal route of extradition to avoid delay.