The CBI is preparing a list of cricketers and film personalities who received gifts from the Pearls Group, the company charged with alleged swindling of Rs 45,000 crore from over five crore investors, the biggest known ponzi scam to ever have broken in India.
Reports say India and Punjab cricketers Yuvraj and Harbhajan Singh received plots in Mohali as gifts by the ponzi company. Also, certain film personalities profited through the scheme as well.
The group had further interest in cricket and was the main sponsor in one of the leading teams playing in IPL. It also invested in Super Fight League, Kabbadi and Golf Premier League. Brett Lee was chosen as the group’s brand ambassador.
The plots given to Yuvraj and Harbhajan are likely to be seized by the investigative agencies CBI & ED.
The way in which the company would hoodwink customers is that they would ask people to buy plots of land in the promise that it would be sold for twice the price. One single plot of land would consequently be sold a number of times, as investments and lives of common people were smashed by the false promises.
Cricketers might be interrogated
On Saturday, Metropolitan Magistrate Harvinder Singh sent Pearls Group CMD Nirmal Singh Bhangoo and three top executives in CBI’s custody till January 19 after the agency said that their custodial interrogation was required to find out the money trail and unearth the entire conspiracy.
Apart from Bhangoo, CMD of Pearls Golden Forest Ltd (PGF) and ex-Chairman of Pearls Australasia Pty Limited, the other three arrested are Sukhdev Singh, MD and Promoter-Director of Pearls Agrotech Corporation Ltd (PACL),Gurmeet Singh, Executive Director (Finance) and Subrata Bhattacharya, ED in the PGF/PACL.
It is possible that Yuvraj, Harbhajan and Brett Lee will be questioned by the CBI, to find out more about the 45,000-crore scam from which the three cricketers have benefitted.
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