Bengaluru: The CBI reportedly arrested former Karnataka Minority Affairs Minister Roshan Baig for his alleged involvement in the multi-crore I-Monetary Advisory (IMA) ponzi scam in the state, a source said on Sunday.
"Baig was taken into custody and sent to 14-day judicial custody after he was questioned during the day for his involvement in the IMA ponzi scam," a CBI source told IANS on the condition of anonymity.
Roshan Baig (67) is a 7-time legislator from the Shivajinagar assembly segment in the city and was a minister in the Congress and Janata Dal governments.
Baig was however suspended by the Congress in 2019 on account of what it termed "anti-party activities".
Baig's suspension from the Congress was announced after he insulted top Congress leaders for the party's poor performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls
"Baig was summoned for interrogation to our office earlier in the day and taken into custody on the evidence collected against him in the scam that rocked the state in 2018-19," the source said.
I-Monetary Advisory (IMA) scam came in light last year when its promoter Mansoor Khan was arrested by ED in July, 2019 after hundreds of investors complained to city police that the chit fund firm stopped returning their deposits, including gold jewellery and cash.
The Karnataka government had constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the police to probe the case before handing it over to the CBI.
The agency found in its probe that more than Rs 4,000 crore of deposits were illegally raised from lakhs of innocent investors, but the CID of the state gave a clean chit to the company and its promoter-director Mohammed Mansoor Khan who promised intrest free investment.
The I-Monetary Advisory (IMA) Jewellery kingpin Mohammed Mansoor Khan alleged that he had given Rs 400 crore to Baig ahead of the state assembly elections in April-May 2018.
In an audio clip to then Bengaluru Police Commissioner Ajay Kumar Singh, Khan alleged that Baig was harassing him for more money and he fled to Dubai in June second week as his life was under threat.
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