The Rise & Fall Of Mansoor KhanBy: Rizwan Asad It was the 90’s decade when the then unknown man named Mohammed Mansoor Khan was working in a small fish shop. His parents, hailing from Tamil Nadu, had landed in Bengaluru in the 50’s decade & settled here in Mackan Road in Shivajinagar.Right at the young age of 18, Mohammed Mansoor Khan, had made up his mind to work instead of going to college. So he started working as a sales representative, but of course after his small stint in the fish shop.It was much later, that he had decided to put his mind & his heart in academics & thereby ended up obtaining a degree of B.Com from the Bangalore University.Once that done he had started hunting for a job but was unable to find a proper job in Bengaluru, so he left for Dubai in the late decade 0f the 90’s, where he worked as a sales representative in a jewellery business run by one of his relatives. It was here that he had gained the knowledge of the gold trade.After making his comeback from Dubai & picking up the ropes of the gold trade, instead of Bengaluru he had headed straight to Chennai, then Madras where he had succeeded in getting a post graduate diploma in his by now favorite arena of jewellery design. After passing through & acquiring the entire ropes of the jewellery field he returned to Bangalore & joined the Heera Islamic Business Group run by Noweera Sheikh before setting up the roots of his own firm later known more popularly as IMA Jewels.So this in a nutshell is the short & sweet or rather a brief & bitter history of the fraudster Mohammed Mansoor Khan & his equally fraud company known as IMA Jewels.But Mr. Mansoor Khan could not keep the lid on his fraud dealings a secret for long. As very soon a probe into his Rs 3,000 crores ponzi scam perpetrated by none other than I Monetary Advisory (IMA) based in Bengaluru.And the so called firm IMA had ended up cheating several depositors which has of late taken up several fraudulent twists & turns.Not only this the Special Investigation Team is now seriously & actually investigating the entire fraud scam case & is also probing into the wheeling dealings of the IMA CEO Mohammed Mansoor Khan’s past activities, for which there are also allegations that the man who is known to have a firm & a strong political connections & disappeared from the country, was actually aided & abetted by a few corrupt officials in the so called police department.On the contrary the allegations made that the Bengaluru police did not take the Revenue Department’s public notice seriously stating that IMA was carrying our fraudulent activities in the month of November 2018 seriously, some sources say that they are looking into whether any police officials were involved in covering up Mansoor Khan’s tracks since the year 2015. Whereas the truth of the fact is that in the month of April 2017, Mansoor Khan had filed a case against Janasri TV CEO Lakshmi Prasad Vajpai making serious allegations that Lakshmi Prasad Vajpai was trying to extort Rs 15 crores from him.But the million dollar question is that did Lakshmi Prasad Vajpai really have any incriminating evidence against Mansoor Khan & his so called IMA’s illegal dealings?But on the other hand the other sources say that their probe has unraveled several details about Mansoor Khan & his sudden accumulation of the hugh wealth. Which brings us to another million dollar question as to who is Mansoor Khan in reality?A Small Time StartActually speaking Mansoor Khan had made his career start off by joining the firm named as Heera Islamic Business Group run by none other than the lady known as Nowhera Shaikh, where Mansoor Khan had allegedly learned the inner workings of the so called Ponzi scams by showcasing them as halal investments. On this aspect & respect a source averred, “Mansoor Khan had learned where to buy the gold for cheap & bring it back to sell it for higher prices at Heera Gold. One of the 1st ever businesses that he had set up was IMA Jewels. ”In the year 2006, Mansoor Khan had decided to establish a similar financial advisory company. As a resident of Shivajinagar, Mansoor Khan had allegedly rubbed shoulders with the so called gangsters of the surrounding arena. While a gangster was the one bringing in the investment, Mansoor was allegedly the salesman who was trying to lure more & more investors. Thus, began the advisory firm IMA.While another source added, “At that time, there was no one who took Mansoor seriously as he did not possess a good reputation due to the people he mingled with. So, the company was dissolved by the year 2008.”The rise & rise & the ultimate fall of IMA & Mansoor KhanBy the month of December 2013, Mansoor Khan had allegedly decided to take a different route namely to gather the support of the religious leaders from his community in order to drive his by now hard earned investment into his new venture. Later on Mansoor Khan & his closest ally Nasir Hussein had started the firm named I Monetary Advisory in the month of December 2013.In this regard one more source had this particular input to offer, “Mansoor Khan by now had already began convincing the ulema in Bengaluru & moreover several other districts in Karnataka by stating that his company has been in existence since the year 2006. Although it was technically not true, but the ulema were convinced by his plan. Mansoor Khan had, in fact, promised 10 times more than what was invested. Of the profits earned, he promised to give 70% of it to the investors, retain 15% for the company expenses, use 10% for the charitable works & keep the remaining money for himself. He promised the ulema that he would build hospitals & also open a school. ”By the year 2015, IMA had over 10,000 investors & the numbers only kept increasing. But in the year 2016, Mansoor Khan had opened IMA Jewels in Shivaji Nagar.The next source adds, “IMA Jewels used to give out 20% to 50% discounts on gold to its investors at its showroom in Shivaji Nagar. This is when the Income Tax Department began getting suspicious. In the month of April 2017, the Income Tax Department had conducted a search & also a seizure operation at the varied properties owned by Mansoor Khan. He was under investigation for not filing the returns since the year 2015 & also the year 2016 fiscal. In fact the I-T firm had received a tip off from the RBI in the year of 2015 itself,”And then the IMA offered the members of the Muslim community the offer of the so called “halal” investment options. And according to the Sharia law, it is considered “haram” (prohibited) to draw interests (riba) on money. The “Halal” options are considered ethical wherein the amount can be invested in trade of commodities accepted under the Islamic law & a profit is shared with the investors.Between the year 2016 & the year 2018, the IMA Group of Companies had already started a school, a multi-specialty hospital, a supermarket chain, gold trade business & also a construction company under its umbrella. Not only this another Jewellry showroom was opened in Jayanagar in the bygone year of 2018.Adding a pile on to this some sources stated that Mansoor Khan had allegedly got 3 other influential ulema in Bengaluru to endorse his company IMA & also got the powerful politicians to attend most of the so called IMA functions.Mansoor Khan had also allegedly worked for several election campaigns of a senior politician in Bengaluru & is also said to have rubbed shoulders with those in power in their time in the state.Under the Scanner of the state & even the central agenciesInvestigators say that Mansoor Khan was under the scanner of the RBI, the I-T Department, the Ggovernment & also the police. However, with no investor coming forward to file their complaints, Mansoor Khan had allegedly got away for 3 cosecutivec years. In fact the RBI had first issued a notification to the Karnataka Government in the year 2015 that IMA was indulging in a Ponzi scam scheme. The Revenue Department, however, dropped its probe when it found that the investors were listed as partners, according to the investment bonds & not depositors in IMA.According to the Karnataka Protection of Interest of the Depositors in Financial Establishments Act of the year 2006, partners of a firm are excluded as “depositors.” In the case of IMA, every investor was termed a “partner” as per the original bonds. The Karnataka Government had in the year 2015 decided to avoid prosecuting Mansoor Khan due to this loophole. Sources in the Revenue Department say that a cabinet minister at the time had intervened & ensured that IMA got a clean chit.In the year 2018, when a section of the investors stopped getting their monthly dividends, the company once again came under RBI scanner. This time, the Revenue Department decided to probe the matter & had also issued a public notice regarding the IMA’s fraudulent activities in the month of November 2018. Central Crime Branch police say that the economic offenses wing was already investigating Mansoor Khan when a similar halal investment company namely Ambident Marketing was exposed for indulging in a Ponzi scam scheme. “Many people who had invested in Ambident Marketing had also invested in IMA. But in the month of November 2018, there was not a single complaint against IMA & so they could not do anything. The case was even given to the CID department but they could not do much either,” a CCB source added.When IMA was shut down on 10th June 2019, investors were left with just 2 audio clips purported to be suicide notes recorded by Mansoor Khan. However, on 13th June 2019 some sources learned that he had fled to Dubai with his 4th wife & 2 children. A raid was conducted on several of his properties since 10th June 2019 & on Monday the home of his 3rd wife Tabassum was raided, “We recovered 1.5 kg gold, 2.5 lakh cash & also some documents. In fact Mansoor’s 3rd wife is cooperating with the investigation & has also given a laptop in which she says Mansoor Khan had kept crucial information. The matter is looked into. Period!
