Partner in Odisha chit fund company arrested by EOW

Reported by Santosh Jagdev
Bhubaneswar, Dec 9:

The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Odisha Crime Branch (CB) today arrested a partner of Utkal Bharati, a chit fund scam company, on charges of duping crores of rupees from their investors in Angul and Talcher area.

The co-partner, identified as Tapas Ranjan Sahu, was the alleged mastermind, who had fraudulently collected over Rs 4 crore from the investors by launching various schemes and promising high returns on their deposits.

A case has been registered against the accused under section 406, 420, 465, 467, 468, 471, 120 (B) of the IPC and under the relevant provisions of the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978.

On August 14, the EOW had arrested four other directors of the company – Biswanath Behera, Trilochan Hota, Rabindra Barik and Jyotirmay Pradhan – for fraudulently collecting over Rs 2.5 crore from investors in the city.

The arrests were made following complaints filed by nearly 60 investors against the four in the month of June this year.

The four, residents of the city, who had run four companies in the city – Utkal Bharati Trading House, Utkal Nirman, Sanjog Marketing and Shree Utkal Bharati – joined hands to open Utkal Bharati Trading House in 2000 and subsequently opened three other chit-fund companies. They continued to run their companies till 2010 at Saheed Nagar and Mancheswar, EOW sources said.