16 November 2018
Gali Janardhan Reddy was formerly a minister in the ruling party BJP. He is a mining baron in the district of Ballari in Bengaluru. He is alleged to have received 57 kg gold worth $2.5 Million to help an accused in a case being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). He has already spent three years in jail. He was out on bail.
A magistrate’s court in Bengaluru had remanded Reddy to judicial custody till 24 November. Reddy’s aide Ali Khan was also arrested.
Syed Ahmed Fareed, owner of Ambident Group, which was allegedly running a Ponzi scheme and cheated thousands of depositors, gave the above-mentioned gold to get himself off the hook out of a corruption case involving the Ponzi scheme. The Ambident Group, which has defrauded hundreds of investors and has a $ 83 million fraud case against it. The Enforcement Directorate has stated that it imposed a penalty of $258,000 on Ambident Marketing Pvt Ltd earlier this year for violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act. The Central Crime Branch has not been able to find the gold after raids on properties belonging to Reddy and Fareed. The Indian Express reported.
Two of Janardhan Reddy’s brothers, G Somashekara Reddy and G Karunakara Reddy, were fielded by the BJP from areas surrounding Ballari in the recent assembly elections in Karnataka.
