The I-T department, which has been roped in to investigate the case, feels many of the people named as investors exist only on papers.
A senior I-T official said the department had asked stock brokers to provide data on NSEL investors to check whether the know-your-customer norms had been adhered to.
According to him, the department believes the actual number of investors involved in the scam is much less than the 13,000 mentioned by NSEL.
The I-T department’s suspicions arose from the claims made by the NSEL management that many brokers had invested from their proprietary books.
This implies brokers were actually investing their own money in these trades.
The department wants to know if the proprietary money was invested through benami or even dummy investors to earn high rates of return, of 14-16 per cent.
“Some brokers may have picked up cash from the market and invested in these trades through dummy accounts.
“We need to know whether the investors paid tax on the invested money or were trying to indulge in money laundering through this channel,” said the I-T officer.
Priti Gupta, executive director (commodities & currency), Anand Rathi Commodities, confirmed the I-T department had been following this line of investigation: “We have given details of all our NSEL investors to I-T
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