Spotlight
Basheera Begum, 65, suffers from diabetes and had one of her legs amputated recently. She is bedridden with no support system to speak of. She says that the I Monetary Advisory (IMA) ‘halal’ investment Ponzi scheme that was busted in 2019 in Bengaluru and COVID-19 that followed have reduced her to this state.
Basheera’s husband, Wali Ahmed, worked in West Asia for many years and returned home with a life savings of ₹55 lakh in 2017, when IMA was all the rage in the city, especially in the Muslim community as investors were promised and were getting high monthly returns and was approved and advertised as a “halal investment option” by a section of the city’s ulema.
