Noida Ponzi scam: ED files fresh case under PMLA

The ED has registered a fresh money laundering case against the owner of a Noida-based firm and others as part of its probe in the alleged Rs 3,700 crore ponzi scam perpetrated by him after promising money in lieu of 'likes' on social media to lakhs of gullible investors.

Officials said the agency has booked a fresh Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), ED equivalent of a police FIR, on the basis of "new facts" arising out of the investigation conducted by it till now against the alleged "mastermind" of the scam and owner of the accused firm Anubhav Mittal and his enterprise. "He is alleged to have misused forged/expired ISO certificates for portraying the business of his company as a genuine before the public as well as government agencies," the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said in a statement.

It said the agency has moved a fresh application in a competent court seeking permission to interrogate Mittal and others in the "light of new facts".

The ED had in March attached assets worth Rs 599 crore in this case after it registered its first ECIR based on the FIR of the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF).

The agency will soon record the statement of Mittal's father, Sunil Mittal, who is lodged in Luksar jail in Greater Noida near here. Mittal, the agency had earlier said, had collected "several thousand crore of rupees from the customers of his company by false inducements and later siphoned off the same by means of generating false or bogus bills/invoices with the assistance of various persons who are under scrutiny". Ayushi has got a stay order from the High Court on her arrest, while Mittal and three others have been arrested by the UP STF in this case.