New Delhi: A case has come before the ED, where the main targets of the scam were Muslims following Sharia law, which prohibits earning interest on investments. The criminals targeted unsuspecting individuals by promising them returns of up to 36% per year on their investments, and collected over Rs 6,000 crore in a few years.

The conspiracy of this scam was hatched by a woman named Nowhera Shaikh from Hyderabad. He was arrested in a Gurgaon hotel last week after being on the run for over a month after the Supreme Court canceled his bail and asked him to surrender.

The swindler woman also cheated the courts and enforcement agencies several times. He also tried to mislead the Supreme Court by saying that he had surrendered before the Hyderabad Police, but they refused to take him into custody. Assets worth more than Rs 400 crore owned and controlled by him have been seized and the process of returning them to the victims is underway.

A senior ED official said, Nowhera Shaikh, her family members and other associates lured lakhs of people to invest in their Ponzi schemes. Early investors made huge profits, but 1.

7 lakh others lost their deposits. An inquiry was ordered by the SC and later all the properties attached by the ED were ordered to be seized and disposed of as compensation. The woman and her associates filed several affidavits and claims, which further delayed the sale of the properties.

One of his associates, calling himself ‘Kalyan Banerjee’, impersonated a PMO official to derail the Supreme Court order on the sale of properties and their compensation. He was arrested in January.

The agency had seized 12 vehicles, including a BMW, a Mercedes Benz, a Mahindra Scorpio, several Toyota Fortuners and cash worth Rs 92 lakh during searches at his residence in 2024.