(source : ANI) ( Photo Credit : ani)
Delhi Police Nab Hemp Scam Mastermind at Airport After Months on the Run
Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has finally caught up with Rohit Sharma, a 44-year-old fraudster behind a massive Rs 2.16 crore investment scam linked to the Indian Institute of Hemp Association (IIHA). Sharma, who had been dodging the law for months, got nabbed at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport on September 8, 2025. He was declared an absconder back in October 2024, and police slapped him with a two-day custody remand to dig deeper into the case.
The scam came to light after Karan Bhatia, Director of M/s Ice Dream Global Pvt Ltd, filed a complaint with the EOW. Bhatia said Sharma lured his company into investing in an industrial hemp project, sweet-talking them with promises of consultancy services, raw material supply like bhang, and even government licenses. Trusting these assurances, the company signed deals with IIHA and wired Rs 2.16 crore straight to the trust’s account, plus another Rs 50 lakh for project expenses. But guess what? Not a single bit of raw material ever showed up.
Cops dove into the investigation, grilling Bhatia and poring over key documents like the Letter of Intent, NDA/MoU, and Supply Agreement. What they uncovered was shocking: Sharma had signed everything as IIHA President and controlled the bank accounts where the money landed. A money trail showed the full Rs 2.16 crore funneled straight into Sharma’s personal accounts and his own shady companies. Investigators pointed out his false promises—no licenses obtained, no materials supplied—which screamed fraud from the start.
Digging further, police found Sharma never had a valid hemp cultivation license from the Uttarakhand government, despite bragging about it. He couldn’t produce any proof of actual hemp farming either. This all pointed to a clear plan to cheat investors right from the get-go. When things heated up, Sharma skipped town, heading abroad and ignoring police summons. That’s when they labeled him an absconder on October 26, 2024, and issued a Lookout Circular (LOC) to catch him at borders.
A bit about Sharma: Hailing from Gurugram, Haryana, he studied commerce and management but dropped out halfway. In 2010, he headed to Germany for a program on industrial hemp. Back home, he bounced around jobs in call centers, advertising, and marketing before launching his own outfits, like Ocean Production. By 2015, he set up IIHA as a trust and posed as a big-shot hemp industry consultant. He roped in multiple companies—think M/s Ice Dream Global Pvt Ltd, Daoji Agro Pvt Ltd, CanIndica Pvt Ltd, and Hemp Pharma Amro Pvt Ltd—with similar fake deals, but delivered zilch.
After fleeing, Sharma settled in Canada with his wife and kid, leaving his parents in Gurugram. Sadly, his father passed away recently. And it’s not just this scam—police linked him to another fraud case in Rajasthan, with an FIR at PS Mahesh Nagar in Jaipur South for cheating.
The EOW isn’t stopping here. They’re on the hunt to track down the diverted funds and sniff out any accomplices in this hemp scam saga. Stay tuned as the investment fraud probe unfolds—could there be more victims out there?
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