Investors left in lurch as Ponzi scheme surfaces

Hundreds of investors are having sleepless nights after the management of an investment company shut up shop and made away with crores of rupees, mostly from the minority community, police said.

Around six staffers of Baraka Investment Consultant Pvt Ltd in RT Nagar are being investigated for cheating, criminal conspiracy and breach of trust for allegedly running a Ponzi operation on the lines of Amdidant.

The accused are Shafiulla, Rafiulla, Zabiulla, Abdul Rahman, Salma, and Tajunnissa.

The RT Nagar police took up the case based on a complaint by one of the investors, Syed Nizamuddin (45), who allegedly lost Rs 25 lakh.

In his complaint lodged on May 9, Nizamuddin said officials from the company, situated on CBI Road, Ganganagar, introduced themselves as big investors and induced the public, especially the Muslim community, to invest in their monthly schemes. In return, they were promised profit/interest every month ranging from 12% to 24%.

The company began its operations in 2016 but introduced the Ponzi scheme only during the end of 2018, when it began receiving investments ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 50 lakh. Once they received enough investments, the staff stopped paying the profits/interests.

As the investors started questioning, the company staff requested for time, promising to pay back their entire sum invested along with the said profit/interest.

Nizamuddin alleged there were around 1000 investors and off late a few of them learnt that their investments had been put into illegal trading through banned trading websites. Nizamuddin also alleged that the company had off-shored the invested money to Russia, Dubai, Malaysia and Singapore.

"Though the company is shut down at present, we learnt that the company staff were returning the investors' money slowly. However, we are probing into the case," said an investigating officer.