CBI seeks govt nod to prosecute 2 IPS officers, 4 others in IMA Ponzi scheme

The CBI has sought sanction to prosecute six Karnataka officials, including two Indian Police Service (IPS) officers, in connection with multi-crore ponzi scheme run by I-Monetary Advisory (IMA) and its group entities which allegedly duped lakhs of people promising higher returns using Islamic ways of investment.

The CBI has written to the Karnataka government seeking its nod for prosecuting Hemant Nimbalkar, a 1998-batch IPS officer, and Ajay Hilori, a 2008-batch IPS officer. The residences of the two officers were raided by the CBI earlier.

While Nimbalkar was posted as the then Inspector General of Economic Offences, Hilori was the then Deputy Commissioner of East Bengaluru.

Besides these two, the CBI has approached the state authorities for granting sanction to prosecute the then Deputy Superintendent of Police CID EB Sridhara, Inspector and SHO Commercial Street Police Station M Ramesh and sub-inpector of the station P Gowrishankar, the then Assistant Commissioner Bengaluru North Sub Division LC Nagaraj.

CBI has already filed two charge sheets against 22 accused including directors, chartered accountants, middlemen and the company as well as its sister concerns.