The Haryana government on Monday said that more than 36 lakh investors in the Pearl Agro Corporation Limited (PACL) case have been refunded a total of ₹ 3,864 crore. PACL case is an alleged investment fraud case involving lakhs of investors where money was collected through real estate schemes and high returns were promised.
The spokesperson said that MuleHunter.ai, an artificial intelligence and machine learning-based solution developed by the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH) for the detection of mule accounts has been successfully deployed across 31 major banks. The RBI informed the committee that more than 25,000 financial literacy programmes have been conducted across Haryana, as part of efforts to increase awareness about financial services, safe banking and protection against financial fraud.
The matter came up at state level coordination committee (SLCC) convened by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) where action taken on issues discussed during the previous SLCC meeting was reviewed and matters relating to alleged financial fraud, unauthorised deposit collection, complaints received through the SACHET Portal, market intelligence inputs and recent initiatives for creating greater financial awareness among citizens were examined, an official spokesperson said, Haryana chief secretary Anurag Rastogi presided over the 16th SLCC meeting to review the state of financial frauds, investor protection measures, emerging cyber threats and technology-based initiatives aimed at strengthening financial sector security in the state. The spokesperson said the committee also discussed market intelligence on new and emerging forms of financial fraud reported in the state of Haryana. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) detected that PACL was running the investment schemes without complying with regulations. Among the issues highlighted were cyber frauds involving online gaming, where fraudsters lure young users with fake in-game rewards and, in some cases, exploit payment accounts linked to parental bank accounts for unauthorised transactions.
