BENGALURU: Seven weeks after the fraud came to light, the Karnataka government has transferred the Vikram Investments case to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). The Banashankari firm has been accused of cheating hundreds of people, including sports celebrities, crores of rupees by promising unusually high returns on their investment.All documents and other material pertaining to the case were deposited at the CID headquarters in Carlton Towers, Palace Road, on Tuesday. CID director general of police Praveen Sood held a day-long pre-investigation meet. Several south division police officers, including deputy commissioner of police SD Sharanappa, briefed the CID on their investigation in the case.Sood told TOI the case is a challenge. "Two big questions need to be answered here: Where did the accused invest the money; and how did they transfer such high returns. Prima facie, it looks like a Ponzi scheme," he said.The scam came to light in early March when PR Balaji, a businessman from south Bengaluru who had invested Rs 11.7 crore in the firm after he was promised huge returns, filed a case of cheating with the Banashankari police. In his complaint, Balaji said the firm initially gave him high returns, but defaulted on payouts later, and refused to return the capital despite repeated requests.Following the complaint, police arrested prime accused Raghavendra Srinath , founder director of Vikram Investments, and his wealth managers Sutram Suresh, Narasimha Murthy, Prahlada and KC Nagaraj. All five are in judicial custody at Parappana Agrahara Central Prison.Srinath and his wealth managers succeeded in getting people to invest hundreds of crores of rupees on the promise of high returns.

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