Mumbai couple booked for duping 444 people of over Rs 20 crores

This incident came to light after the complaint of Poonawala’s elder sister Bilkis Afroz Shaikh (48), who is also one of the victims.

Date: July 5, 2024

A Mumbai couple has been booked for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme and duping 444 people of Rs 20.14 crores.

On Wednesday, July 3, Mumbai police Economic Offences Wing (EOW) officials registered an investment related fraud case against the accused identified as Raeesa Khan Poonawala (46) and her husband Mustafa Baig.

This incident came to light after the complaint of Poonawala’s elder sister Bilkis Afroz Shaikh (48), who is also one of the victims.

As per Indian Express, the FIR states that Poonawala and Baig owned a firm called RK Interior located in Daulat Nagar, Santacruz (West). The two induced several persons into investing money in their firm and promised 150 per cent interest in 90-100 days on the invested amount.

The complainant, who runs a boutique, said that she trusted her sister (Poonawala) and invested around Rs. 18 lakhs.

Later, she also encouraged other friends and relatives to invest and take advantage of the scheme by earning exorbitant profits. Hundreds of people invested money with Poonawala by seeing Shaikh’s trust and reference. Most of the investment was in cash and hailed from middle-class families, who operate small businesses. Among these, one of the investors had invested Rs. 8 crores.

When Poonawala failed to fulfill her promises after the stipulated time, angry investors began asking Shaikh to return their money as they trusted her words. Upon demanding money from Poonawala, she made some payments through Shaikh and her husband’s cheque so that they could return it to investors.

The angry investors submitted the cheques to the bank which subsequently bounced due to insufficient funds in the account. Following this the investors filed cases against Shaikh and her husband for the bouncing cheques.

It is pertinent to note that the police have already registered a cheating case against Poonawala and her husband in the past for a similar fraud and have arrested them too. They are currently on bail in that case.

After struggling for quite a long time to file an FIR, Shaikh approached the Bandra magistrate court and filed a complaint against her younger sister who defrauded people by misusing her name and goodwill.

After eight months the court directed the police to register an FIR under sections 156(3) of CrPC against the accused persons and investigate the matter.

A case has been registered against the couple under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant, banker, merchant, or agent), and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 3 and 4 of the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors in Financial Establishment (MPID) Act.