Odisha chit fund scam: CBI detains AT group co-founder

Reported by Santosh Jagdev
Bhubaneswar, Aug 19:

The CBI today detained a co-founder of Artha Tatwa (AT) Group and founder member of Swastik India Multi-State Cooperative Agency Ranjan Dash for interrogation in connection with the ongoing probe into the multi-crore Odisha chit fund scam.

A CBI team detained Dash from the Badagada Brit Colony area of the city. A co-founder of the AT group, he had left the company after working there for some months, said a senior officer from CBI.

His departure from the company he helped launch was the result of a dispute with Pradip Sethy, the CMD of the AT group now in the Jharpada jail here, the officer said. Aftre quitting AT, Dash launched Swastik India,another chit fund company.

He will be interrogated about his connections with the AT Group, the officer added.

It was alleged that Dash, having links with a senior BJD leader, had managed to open branches of the company at various places in the state and collect over Rs 100 crore from the people by luring them with the promise of attractive returns against their investment.

Swastik India had opened one office near the IDBI Bank on the Janpath under Saheed Nagar police station limits and another in the Bomikhal area.

Apart from this, the company had opened its offices at Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, New Delhi, Coimbatore, Hyderabad and Jaipur.

It may be mentioned that the Swastik India Multi-State Cooperative Agency is among the 44 chit fund companies being probed by the CBI.