Dr.Thomas (Special Correspondent)
The Bengaluru district police investigating The Pearls Agrotech Corporation Limited,or PACL,land scam chargesheet against 12 persons while at least two kingpin including a suspended police Inspector are on the run.
The charge sheeted accused including the prime accused in the racket Manjunath,53 and Shivapuntra Tanga,51,sub registrar of Anekal saub division were arrested and presently out on bail, while the kingpin Suspended Inspector Kishore Kumar is yet to be arrested.
The Police said that Kishore had got a stay order which was vacated recently and efforts are on to track him down,M.Chandrashekhar,Inspector General of Police,(central range) supervising the investigations, said .
The Pearls Agrotech Corporation Limited, or PACL, Ponzi scam defrauded investors of more than Rs. 50,000 across India.The scam surfaced in 2016.
The company used the collected funds to divert into the shell companies to buy properties in their names.
The CBI,ED and SEBI probed the case separately and traced the shell companies of the PACL and sseized the land.
A committee headed by former Chief Justice of India R M Lodha recommended confiscating the lands of PACL and ordered the stamps and registrations department not to register properties related to PACL.
The PACL company which has around 4000 acres of land worth 9600 crores in its name and also in the name of its associates companies in and around the state .
However the accused created fake documents in collusion with the officials of the sub registrar office got the properties registered under fictecious names and then sold it to the gullible people, Chandrashekhar said.
Based on a complaint the police formed a special teams to investigate and arrested the accused who created three fake sale deeds for 12 acres worth Rs.15 crores,which has been recovered,so far.
Terming this scam as one of the biggest in the recent past,Mr.Chandrashekhar said that the victims who have cheated by the PACL are cheated cheated again,since the land which are sealed by Justice Lodha committee,supposed to be auctioned to compensate the victims has been sold again.
The police are contemplating invoking KCOCA case against the accused,considering the magnitude of the case.
The accused Kishore who is on the run,has reportedly met the rowdies and gangsters in the central prison of Parappana Agrahara recently to get them threaten the victims and the witnesses in the case.
Mr.Chandrashekhar said that they have some information on this and efforts are on to secure Kishore to probe on this he added.
