-The Hindustan Times The sorry plight of thousands of small savers duped by a deposit-collecting firm in West Bengal is, perhaps, symptomatic of a wider malaise that runs deep in the Indian economy. What if a company asked you to invest Rs. 200,000 and promised to give you Rs. 8,000 a month for five years and a swanky sedan at the end of the fifth year? What if a company asked...

-The Hindu Business Line Kolkata: Everyone knew that the bomb was ticking. But, there was not much action to curb the mushrooming Ponzi schemes that were collecting thousands of crores from hapless investors across West Bengal since 2007-08. Some promised to grow money by 34 times in 25 years by investing in teak bonds. Others offered to double money in 15 months by investing in the potato trade. As a result, investments...

-The Telegraph The "Bonzi" edifice, Bengal's version of the fraudulent Ponzi scheme that conned US investors a century ago, is shaking at its foundations. The panic set off by Saradha defaulting on payments has spread to similar schemes run by other firms and triggered protests and attacks on company offices in several parts of the state. These schemes' mostly small-time rural investors have begun to panic about the safety of their hard-earned...

-The Hindu Attaches Swiss bank accounts of City Limouzines Group, says the case will help other international investigations For the first time, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has been able to convince Switzerland to give it access to attach the accounts of an Indian company, City Limouzines, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The company was allegedly involved in running a racket of Ponzi schemes in various cities and has stashed...

The government may make mandatory the disclosure of high-value purchases such as property and jewellery. Stung by growing public outrage over corruption, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee will on Monday spell out steps taken and planned to curb proliferation of black money. There are no clear estimates of the size of India’s black economy but the amount is pegged between $462 billion (Rs.22 lakh crore) and $1.4 trillion (Rs.77 lakh crore). Mukherjee...