Seashore group booked for Rs.4 crore fraud in Raipur

OST Bureau

Raipur, Oct 1

Police have registered a case against chairman and other senior officials of Odisha based Seashore group here for defrauding as many as 340 people in Chhattisgarh after collecting deposits worth Rs.4 crore.

Raipur police have registered a case against Seashore chairman Prashant Dash, and other senior officials who include N.L.Satapathy and Dilip Mohanty, police said.

The Civil line police registered the case after many investors of Raipur and other area of the state recently brought the matter to the notice of chief minister Raman Singh.

According to police the company allegedly collected money from large number of people promising a high return but later refused to honour its promise.

The Seashore group had opened an office at Shankar Nagar and organized a seminar at a leading hotel in the city. Hundreds of people from Raipur and other parts of the state had attended that event.

After the event, more than 340 people invested a total of about Rs.4 crore in the company after promises were made that the company would pay an interest of 12 per cent on their investment every year.

Although the company paid the maturity amount initially, its officials went underground when the company’s head office in Odisha faced a crisis following a major crackdown on chit fund companies in the state.

Seashore Group, which operates several businesses in Odisha including insurance, healthcare, IT and telecom, media, retail, education and agriculture has also been accused of collecting money from thousands of people in its home state.

Its chairman cum managing director Prashant Dash has been in judicial custody in Odisha since he was arrested by police in June. Police have also sealed various offices of the group in the state.

Police also in June this year seized about 1,000 silver coins worth Rs.44 lakh from the bank locker of Prashant Dash in Bhubanewar, in connection with the multi-crore rupees chit fund scam.