Major Ponzi scam unearthed, transactions worth Rs 122 cr made in 7 months, four held

The Khanna police claimed to have busted a major Ponzi scam involving crores of rupees wherein people were duped by company officials by creating fake companies. Four suspects were also arrested by the Khanna police in this regard. As per the police, transactions worth Rs 122 crore was made in 21 bank accounts of these companies in just seven months, from January to July this year. The police have also freezed Rs 60 lakh lying in various accounts of the firms.

The suspects were identified as Bikramjit Singh (42), a resident of Gahlewal, Samrala, Amit Khullar (43) of Ferozepur, Harpreet Singh (25) of Gahlewal, Samrala, and Avtar Singh (47) of Khirnia, Samrala. The police also recovered four laptops, four CPUs and two mobile phones from the suspects.

Suspects who are still at large in the case were identified as Jaspreet Singh of Jallanpur, Samrala, Satvinder Singh, alias Sona, of Amloh in Fatehgarh Sahib district and Jatinder Singh, alias Kamal Grewal, of Mandi Gobindgarh and Parvinder Singh of Amloh.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Khanna, Jyoti Yadav, while addressing a press conference said on September 17, Joginder Kumar of Baba Nand Singh Nagar, Phullawal, here, submitted a police complaint that the suspects claimed to have set up a company, ‘The Generation of Farming, which allegedly deals in organic farming practices in Samrala. They provided information about organic products and told the complainant that by investing money in their company, he would receive 8 per cent monthly profit. Believing them, the complainant invested Rs 25,75,000 along with his brother-in-law. Of the total amount, he only received Rs 3,00,000 back and thereafter no further payments were made.

The SSP revealed that on the basis of the complaint, an FIR was lodged at the Samrala police station against all suspects. Later, another FIR was also registered on September 18 in which suspects Bikramjit Singh and Parvinder Singh, also named in the previous FIR, were nominated. Acting promptly, a raid was conducted at ‘The Generation of Farming’ office in Samrala and four suspects were apprehended.

She revealed that after the police unearthed the multi-crore Ponzi scheme racket, eight more complaints were received against the suspects, which are under investigation. Since it was a major racket, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was constituted with SP (Detective) Khanna as the nodal officer, Samrala DSP, DSP (Detective) and Inspector Vinod Kumar as its members.

Dr Jyoti Yadav said it was also found that the suspects had registered multiple firms under different names such as The Generation of Farming, Hope of Farming, Randhawa Enterprises, The GAF Trading Enterprises, Kisan of Punjab Agro Nursery, Generation of Fitness Lab, The GAF Family Care Products and The GAF Milk Products.

A total of 21 bank accounts related to these firms have been identified, which had transactions amounting to Rs 122 crore between January to July this year. Of this, nearly Rs 60 lakh has already been frozen. Interestingly, transactions were made by gullible people from the state, Haryana and other parts of the country.