Officials of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) recovered a licensed pistol and 50 cartridges from a locker at the head office of I Monetary Advisory (IMA).
The SIT investigating the ponzi scam allegedly run by IMA's founder Mansoor Khan searched IMA Gold, one of the offices at IMA Towers, located on Lady Curzon Road in Shivajinagar.
This comes a day after IMA's fugitive founder Mohammed Mansoor Khan purportedly revealed in a video uploaded on YouTube that a lot of gold jewellery and bullion was locked up in the office.
SIT chief BR Ravikanthe Gowda, who is leading the investigation into the scheme, confirmed the recovery of the pistol and the cartridges from the IMA Gold office but made it clear that Khan's video would not be considered a piece of evidence in the investigation, reported Deccan Herald.
Ravikanthe further added that the SIT was making all efforts to trace the location from where the video was uploaded to YouTube.
"On Thursday, we raided IMA Jewels, 90% of which was empty. On Monday, we raided IMA Gold, Khan's bullion trading showroom. He purchased old gold ornaments from customers and sold them gold coins. On the customer's request, Khan's employees would get their gold ornaments mortgaged with other agencies released by making due payments and IMA would later purchase the released gold from customers," a police source told Times of India.
Seven directors of IMA were initially arrested on June 11 after the SIT began investigating the scam. The SIT was asked to investigate after police received more than 38,000 complaints against IMA.
Mansoor Khan fled the country on June 8 and subsequently released an audio clip claiming that Congress MLA (now suspended) Roshan Baig refused to return Rs 400 crore to him and claimed that the money was borrowed in the run-up to the recent Lok Sabha elections.
Bengaluru police have offered protection to Mansoor if he returns to the city to surrender as per the law.