Indian Ponzi Scheme Gets a Political Bailout

As the head of the conglomerate the Saradha Group, Sudipta Sen persuaded small investors in West Bengal to entrust more than $500 million to his business between 2008 and 2013. What wasn't to trust? After all, Sen ran a network of around 300,000 agents, owned a set of TV channels and newspapers and had influential patrons in politics, including a member of Parliament who agreed to run his media operations for him.

Last month, Sen (who so disliked being photographed that his "message" on his company's website has a picture of an empty chair accompanying it) went AWOL after the Ponzi scheme sustained by him for five years finally went bust. He was eventually tracked down in the north Indian state of Kashmir, but not before he had embarrassed the chief minister of West Bengal, the mercurial and autocratic politician Mamata Banerjee. Sen accused two members of Parliament belonging to her party, the Trinamool Congress, of having accepted millions of dollars to buy him protection from the law.