Stockguru case: Court to hear ED's PMLA complaint on July 30

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court would hear on July 30 an Enforcement Directorate (ED) complaint against Ullas Prabhakar, the main accused in the multi-crore StockGuru scam case, his wife and six others for alleged money laundering.

Prabhakar and his wife Priyanka Saraswat Dev, who were summoned as accused on ED's complaint along with six others, were produced from jail before Additional Sessions Judge Gurdeep Singh and copy of the complaint was supplied to them.

During the hearing, ED prosecutor N K Matta said summons issued against accused Nitin Sinha and five companies -- SGI Research and Analysis Ltd, SGI Securities Pvt Ltd, SGI Beverages Ltd, G3 Commodities Pvt Ltd and SGI Buildtech Ltd -- could not be served.

The court issued fresh summons against Sinha and the five accused firms and posted the matter for hearing on July 30.

Prabhakar and Priyanka are currently in judicial custody in the main case lodged by the Delhi Police.

They were summoned on the complaint in which the ED has alleged that properties in the name of these accused were "proceeds of crime" and probe revealed that 2,05,062 investors had invested Rs 493.94 crore in M/s Stockguru.India (SGI).

ED, which had filed the complaint under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), said that Prabhakar and Priyanka were directors of these accused firms.

The agency has alleged that in January 2011, Income Tax officials had raided the residence and offices of Prabhakar and Priyanka, Directors of SGI, and other related firms involved in the activities of multi-level marketing and had seized various documents and cash running into crores.

It said that on June 29, 2011, an FIR was lodged by the police under various sections of the IPC and under Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act and the case was later transferred to the Economic Offence Wing (EOW).

It said on November 10, 2012, Prabhakar and Priyanka were arrested by EOW from Maharashtra and were later chargesheeted along with SGI. Subsequently, Nitin Sinha was also arrested.

"The investigation revealed that there were approximately 2,05,062 investors who have invested money to the tune of Rs 493.94 crore approx in SGI," it said.

ED also alleged that accused were not conducting business of stock trading and had converted amount collected from the public in their own personal account.