The Enforcement Directorate has filed a charge sheet against its own former Deputy Director Gurnam Singh, who has been accused of receiving bribes from the promoters of Ponzi schemes and extorting money from the victims.
The agency said Mr. Singh’s wife Dalip Kaur and advocate Puneet Sharma, who represented the investors of Unipay in the Punjab and Chandigarh High Court, have also been named.
“During investigations into the cases of Unipay2U Marketing and Unipaygateway2U Trading, it was revealed that Mr. Sharma, counsel for the aggrieved investors, was in collusion with Mr. Singh. It was found that Mr. Singh misused his official position and therefore, was repatriated to his parent department in January last year,” said an official.
The accused official extracted money from the investors through Mr. Sharma by making false claims about his proximity to the people in positions of power and also took bribes from the promoters of Ponzi schemes, the agency said.
“In this manner, he had received bribe money in the range of ₹3.5-4.5 crore from the accused persons with a fake promise to settle the writ petition in the High Court and the ongoing ED investigation,” said the official.
The ED had in March conducted searches against the accused persons and attached assets worth ₹4.80 crore.
The case relates to the FIRs registered in Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh against the agents of Unipay2U Marketing and Unipaygateway2U Trading, based in Chennai and having offices in Bengaluru.
The company initially paid back returns, but then the accused went underground. The victims approached the High Court in 2011, which ordered an ED probe.