The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) in Delhi has attached assets worth INR34.36 billion (USD382.77 million) under the PACL, a Pearls Group company, in an anti-money laundering investigation. The company is accused of operating fraudulent collective investment schemes and defrauding investors of around INR480 billion.

ED investigations reveal that 169 properties in total have been attached and acquired through money collected via an alleged ponzi scheme, making them proceeds of crime.

This attachment is part of an ongoing ED investigation in a complaint registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation against PGF, another Pearls Group company, its now deceased chairman and managing director Nirmal Singh Bhangoo along with others for criminal conspiracy and fraud.

The latest development brings the total value of attached properties and assets located in India and abroad to INR56.02 billion.

Pearls is a group of ventures into real estate and investment schemes by Bhangoo and his associates, and has been involved in multiple allegations of scams and frauds over the years. In 2021, 11 people associated with the group, including Bhangoo, had been arrested in a ponzi scheme case worth INR600 billion. Prior to that, in 2016, the Securities and Exchange Board of India had collectively ordered INR233.17 million as a penalty imposed on the company and nine of its key managerial personnel and associates, including Bhangoo, for collecting funds in the name of a ponzi scheme. The same year, the Supreme Court had ordered the formation of the Justice Lodha Committee to oversee the recovery of payments to defrauded investors.