Ullas Prabhakar, the main accused in the multi-crore StockGuru scam case, and seven others have been summoned by a Delhi court on a complaint filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for alleged money laundering.
The order came on ED’s complaint in which it alleged that properties in the name of these accused persons were “proceeds of crime” and probe revealed that 2,05,062 investors had invested Rs 493.94 crore in M/s Stockguru.India (SGI).
Besides Prabhakar, the court summoned as accused his wife Priyanka Saraswat Dev, their alleged associate 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.
The agency, 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.
“ ... As per investigation carried out by Directorate of Enforcement, the properties alleged in the name of accused persons, constitute as proceeds of crime and amounts to money laundering under section 3 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act which is punishable under section 4 of PMLA,” Additional Sessions Judge Gurdeep Singh said.
“Accordingly, I am of the opinion that there are sufficient material on record to proceed against the accused ...,” the judge said, adding, “Issue summons to the accused persons. As per complaint, the accused persons are lodged in the Tihar Jail. Issue their production warrant for July 14.”
In its complaint, the ED alleged that in January 2011, Income-Tax officials had raided the residential and office premises 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 several crores.