The Enforcement Directorate on Friday issued a notice to Karnataka minister BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan to appear before it in connection with the IMA group ponzi scam, PTI reported. “We have issued a notice to Zameer Ahmed Khan,” an unidentified official of the agency said. “We have given one week’s time to appear before us.”

The Enforcement Directorate also attached assets worth Rs 209 crore as part of its money laundering investigation into the alleged scam, PTI reported.

The agency said its Bengaluru zonal office issued a provisional order under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act to attach immovable assets worth Rs 197 crore and about Rs 12 crore deposits in bank accounts.

The Enforcement Directorate had recently lodged a criminal case of money laundering against the IMA Group of Companies and its promoter and managing director Mohammed Mansoor Khan. Khan has been accused of running a ponzi scheme in Karnataka that has allegedly duped more than 30,000 people of Rs 5,000 crore. People from Bengaluru, Hyderabad, New Delhi, and Tamil Nadu are said to have invested into the company.

The agency said Rs 98 lakh was deposited in 51 bank accounts and Rs 11 crore in an HDFC bank account operational under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojna. The scheme was announced post demonetisation as part of a one-time compliance window for people holding black money to come clean by paying tax and penalty of 50%.

The “accused companies and its directors have indulged in the offence of money laundering by cheating common people through ponzi schemes and generated the proceeds of crime in the form of movable and immovable properties”, the Enforcement Directorate said.

The Enforcement Directorate had summoned Khan multiple times for questioning, but he is yet to depose before the agency. It is suspected that Khan has left the country and the agency is working on getting an Interpol arrest warrant issued against him and get him declared a fugitive economic offender by a court, it said.

The Karnataka unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party had demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry into the alleged fraud, and raised questions about Zameer Khan’s alleged links with Mansoor Khan.

“While asking him [Mansoor] to come back, Zameer, who is a minister, has said that ‘the government is with you [Mansoor], don’t fear’,” Karnataka BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa had said. “What does this mean? The chief minister [HD Kumaraswamy] has to answer.”