New Delhi, August 10
The CBI has registered 100 FIRs involving 132 firms relating to Ponzi schemes from 2019 to June 30, 2022, and arrested 21 persons in these cases.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had initiated a probe under various provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in 87 such cases during the period, according to data presented in Parliament recently by the Ministry of Finance.
The ministry said the ED had arrested eight accused during the period. Sharing details in the Lok Sabha while replying to queries by five MPs, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said the government and enforcement agencies had taken action against those running unauthorised schemes.
The ministry said the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) had informed it that the agency had been assigned investigation by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in nine cases (five in 2019-20, one in 2020-21 and three in 2021-22) involving 85 companies (36 in 2019-20, 16 in 2020-21 and 33 in 2021-22). All these cases related to alleged engagement in fraudulent chit fund, multi-level marketing or Ponzi activities, but no arrest had been made in this regard by the SFIO, it said.
An official, while sharing the data, confirmed that the RBI’s Sachet portal, which is the online platform for state-level coordination committees and facilitates the public to lodge complaints of financial frauds,…
