Pearls director held in Rs 49,000-crore Ponzi scam

The Economic Offences Wing of the Uttar Pradesh Police have nabbed Gurnam Singh, 69, director of Pearls Agro-Tech Corporation Limited (PACL), from a farmhouse in Rupnagar.

Gurnam, who has been taken to Uttar Pradesh on a transit remand, is accused of helping Pearl Group Founder Nirmal Singh Bhangoo (now deceased) in scripting Rs 49,000 crore land-linked Ponzi scheme. The Pearls Group duped more than five crore investors across 10 states, including Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi, Bihar and Kerala.

The Pearls Group, originally registered as Guruvant Agro-Tech Ltd in Jaipur in 1996, rebranded in 2011 and expanded its footprint across India. The company offered plots of land against recurring payments and fixed deposits, issuing bond receipts despite not being registered as a Non-Banking Financial Company — a clear violation of the Reserve Bank of India’s norms.

The Ponzi scheme worked as a classic pyramid scheme, using funds from new investors to repay earlier ones and giving commission to agents to recruit aggressively.

While Gurnam was arrested by the CBI in 2016 and released on bail, he had largely disappeared from the public view. With Bhangoo passing away last year in custody and his son-in-law Harsatinder Pal Singh Hayer already in prison for allegedly running shell companies, Gurnam’s arrest can be seen as another step toward unravelling the network of fraud.

The arrest has also brought back focus attention on Pearls Group’s sprawling scams in Punjab, especially in Mohali. Investigations show that the PACL illegally sold more than 50 plots in Sector 104 of Mohali — land linked to the Ponzi scheme — at prices far below market value and in violation of the Supreme Court’s orders. These sales were flagged by the RM Lodha Committee, which is overseeing asset recovery in the case.

Despite judicial attachment of the properties, local influencers allegedly helped individuals construct walls, install water and electricity connections and even deploy private guards to take possession.

Pearls had promised two full-fledged residential sectors — 100 and 104 — in Mohali, but the areas remain undeveloped. Over Rs 600 crore was collected from 1,300 investors, many of whom received fake possession documents.

In response, the Mohali administration has begun confiscating Pearls’ owned plots in villages like Manak Majra, Dhurali and Banur and marked revenue records to prevent further illegal transactions.

The Punjab Vigilance Bureau is also investigating the matter, alongside the Lodha Committee, to recover investors’ funds.

Punjab