Odisha: ED freezes bank accounts of Golden Baba

Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Crime Branch, which is probing the modus operandi of the self-styled Golden Baba alias Jyotiranjan Beura, has frozen several bank accounts of the fraudster, police said today.

As per the available information, as many as seven bank accounts holding deposits of over Rs 51 lakh belonging to Beura have been freezed today.

The freezed accounts are of Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Indusind Bank. All the bank accounts were opened and operated in branches of these banks under Infocity and Chandrasekharpur police stations in the city, police added.

The ED, during the course of its investigation, came to know that the Golden Baba had floated nine group companies on paper with annual turnover of Rs 3,769 crore and branches in Durban, Singapore, Dubai and Malaysia.

According to sources, the conman had signed an agreement to provide financial assistance of Rs 200 crore to a private hospital at Thane in Mumbai, Rs 300 crore to the Engineering Construction Ltd in Hyderabad and Rs 50 crore to the JK Medical System in Bhubaneswar through fake documents. Apart from this, he had an agreement with 4-5 companies for which he had collected Rs 100 crore through the post-dated cheques, which have been seized by the EOW.

Beura was arrested by Chandrasekharpur Police for allegedly duping people and several companies promising them to sanction loans from finance companies.

He was booked and forwarded to court under sections 467, 468, 471, 420 and 511 of the IPC.