The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a chargesheet against former Deputy Director of the agency Gurnam Singh, his wife Dalip Kaur and an advocate in a money
laundering case in connection with a Ponzi scam relating to Unipay2U Marketingand Unipaygateway 2U Trading firms.
In his complaint to the Cabinet Secretary alleging various charges of omission and commission, benched CBI special Director Rakesh Asthana had alleged Gurnam Singh had deleted all data from his
mobile phone during the night before the searches as soon as he arrived in India from the US. Gurnam Singh was facing a disproportionate assets case of the CBI.
“It appears that the accused (Gurnam Singh) got prior hint that he was going to be searched. During verification, Telephone surveillance revealed that Gurnam Singh was founf to be demanding Rs 50 lakh from one Mr Thomas, an advocate for influencing DCBI (Director CBI) and to make CBI aver before the Apex Court that CBI would not be able to take up the case.
Verification also revealed that Gurnam Singh obtained illegal gratification from the accused persons in the FEMA/PMLA cases against Unipay2u, Compact Disc India Ltd and Health Biotech Ltd. On knowing that the case was registered, Director CBI (Alok Verma was furious and shouted at the JD (Joint Director) and the undersigned (Rakesh Asthana) He (Verma) conveyed that (then) Director ED (Karnal Singh) was taking action against Gurnam Singh…,” Asthana had alleged in his complaint.
The chargehseet was filed under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) before Special Court, PMLA, Chandigarh against Singh, his wife and Puneet Sharma, Advocate who represented on behalf of investors of Unipay Ponzi Schemes in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
“During the course of investigation into the cases of Unipay2U Marketing and Unipaygateway2U Trading, it was revealed that Puneet Sharma Advocate, the counsel for the aggrieved investors/petitioners in the writ petitions before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, was in collusion with Gurnam Singh, former Deputy Director of ED,” the ED said in a statement.
The ED added, “It was found that Gurnam Singh was in the habit of misusing his official position and power for his personal benefits, hence was repatriated back to his parent department on 20.01.2017. He extracted money from the investors through Puneet Sharma by misrepresenting and making false claims
of his proximity to the people in positions of power, authority and at the same time took bribe from the promoters of Ponzi schemes.”
Singh allegedly received bribe money in the range of Rs 3.5-4.5 crore from the respondents/accused persons with a fraudulent promise to settle the writ petition in the High Court as well as ongoing investigation in the money laundering case registered by ED.
The proceeds of crime illegally obtained by Gurnam Singh were structured and layered in the form of immovable properties in his name and in the name of his wife which were later on projected as being untainted.
Searches were conducted on March 22 and 23 this year at the residences of Singh, Sharma and other persons involved in the case, which resulted into unearthing of documents relating to possession of movable and immovable properties.
Assets worth Rs 4.8 crore which were dubbed “proceeds of crime” and belonging to Singh, Kaur and Sharma were attached on December 4 and the chargehseet was filed the next day on December 5.
FIRs were registered in Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh against the agents of Unipay2U Marketing Pvt. Ltd. and Unipaygateway2U Trading Pvt. Ltd. based at Chennai, Tamil Nadu and having offices in Bangalore.
The companies had Managing Director namely Mugundham Gangam, a Malaysian National besides other Indian Directors. The company floated online investment Scheme on the basis of various complex marketing level techniques of referral and binary system. The investors were required to invest in the scheme with assured return of 21 per cent.
