Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Jul 26:

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today arrested two directors of Midas Touch, a chit fund company which had allegedly duped around Rs 50 crores from gullible investors in Odisha.

CBI

The arrested were identified as Soubhagya Samal, managing director of the firm, and his wife Nirupama Samal, director of the company. They were reportedly arrested from Vadodara in Gujarat.

"Both the arrested accused persons were absconding since registration of the case by Odisha Police in 2013. A non-bailable warrant was also issued by a special CBI court - Bhubaneswar against them," CBI spokesperson Devpreet Singh said.

Notably, the CBI had on April 17 last year filed a preliminary charge sheet against Soubhagya Samal, Nirupama Samal, Midas Touch Assets and Securities Ltd and Midas Touch Realtech Ltd. (both represented through its Managing Director Soubhagya Samal) for offences U/S 120 B/ 420/409 IPC and section 4,5 &6 of the Prize Chits and Money circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978.

On August 5, 2014, the CBI had conducted search operation on Midas Touch Assets and Securities Ltd across five districts in the state in connection with the multi-crore Ponzi scam.

The office premises of the company in Bhubaneswar, Angul, Dhenkanal, Ganjam and Jajpur were searched by the CBI teams on the same day. The rented residential premises of its Managing Director Soubhagya Kumar Samal were also raided and incriminating documents seized by the investigating agency during the search.

Midas Touch Assets and Securities, which was listed as a company with the Registrar of Companies (RoC), Cuttack in 1995, had mobilized deposits running into crores of rupees from hundreds of investors. Though it claimed to deal in real estate, life insurance as well as consultancy, Midas Touch Assets mostly dabbled in finance schemes.