Balasore: Arrested BJD leader Soumyashankar Chakra, also known as Raja Chakra, was sent to judicial custody until March 19 by the Balasore court, officials said Friday.

According to reports, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has not yet filed a remand petition against Chakra, and his lawyer, Raghunath Pradhan, has not applied for bail. Earlier, authorities arrested former cooperative chairman Manas Ranjan Barik and secretary Utkal Das in connection with the case.

Chakra was arrested Thursday by the Crime Branch in connection with an alleged corruption case involving the Gandhamardan Mining Loading Agency in Keonjhar. He is accused of playing a key role in a scam worth Rs 185 crore ($22.2 million).

Authorities allege Chakra, in collaboration with other officials, siphoned off large sums of money. Official records indicate that the cooperative earned a profit of Rs 185 crore between 2017-18 and March 2024, though no audit has been conducted since 2012-13.

Bhubaneswar: Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader Soumya Sankar Chakra, also known as Raja Chakra, may face arrest in connection with the Gandhamardan mining loading agency corruption case. The Orissa High Court Wednesday rejected the anticipatory bail pleas of Chakra and four of his alleged accomplices.

The Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) has been conducting raids at multiple locations linked to Raja Chakra and his associates as part of the ongoing investigation.

Authorities have not yet confirmed further legal action against the leader and the four others involved.

Earlier, the EOW sleuths quizzed Chakra regarding alleged financial irregularities at his office in Bhubaneswar, March 3.

Also Read: Journalists boycott Odisha Assembly proceedings over mobile phone restrictions

The next day, March 4, joint teams from the EOW and the STF searched multiple locations associated with him, including his loading agency office at Suakati in Keonjhar district, his residence in Keonjhar town, his farmhouse in Gopalpur under Ghatgaon block of the district, and at the checkpoint of industrial corridor.

PNN

Keonjhar: A joint team of Economic Offence Wing (EOW) and Special Task Force (STF) personnel conducted searches at multiple locations belonging to BJD leader Raja Chakra Tuesday in connection with an alleged scam linked to the Gandhamardan Loading Cooperative Society agency in Keonjhar.

The EOW sleuths quizzed Chakra regarding alleged financial irregularities at his office in Bhubaneswar Monday. On Tuesday, joint teams from the EOW and the STF searched multiple locations associated with him, including his loading agency office at Suakati in Keonjhar district, his residence in Keonjhar town, his farmhouse in Gopalpur under Ghatgaon block of the district, and at the checkpoint of industrial corridor.

The sleuths have not yet disclosed what was recovered during the searches. However, sources indicated that officials have seized 20 vehicles, important documents, and other materials. Chakra’s farmhouse has been sealed.

Also Read: Odisha CM invites Naveen to Biju Patnaik’s birth anniversary function amid row over Panchayati Raj Divas

Investigators are scrutinising financial transactions linked to three companies reportedly owned by Chakra, as well as multiple bank accounts. Officials are tracking the flow of money to and from these accounts, sources added. Apart from Keonjhar, raids were also carried out at eight locations across Sundargarh, Sambalpur, and other districts.

PNN

Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police Wednesday arrested a couple from the city’s Patia area for fraudulently obtaining a loan of Rs 1.30 crore from a private bank.

The arrested persons, Ashirbad Pattnaik and his wife Manogyan, availed the loan by mortgaging property they had already used as collateral for another loan. According to the EOW, the couple had taken a loan of Rs 1.05 crore from the Cuttack Link Road branch of ICICI Bank, with an outstanding amount of Rs 1.30 crore as of January 2025.

Police said they had mortgaged two flats and a duplex to obtain this loan, which were already mortgaged for a Rs 3.79 crore loan they had taken from the Indian Bank in 2018.

Ashirbad, who ran a proprietorship firm ‘AB Solutions,’ had secured the original loan of Rs 3.79 crore from Indian Bank in January 2018, police said.

In October 2018, the couple used the same property to obtain the ICICI Bank loan. During the course of their fraudulent activities, Ashirbad sold one of the mortgaged flats, while the remaining property were seized by Indian Bank due to their failure to repay the earlier loan, police added.

The EOW’s investigation revealed that ICICI Bank incurred a wrongful loss of Rs 1.3 crore. Officials seized numerous fake sale deeds and loan documents during the investigation.

PTI

Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offence Wing of the Odisha Police arrested a person from Mumbai for allegedly cheating Rs 1.20 crore from 189 people of the state, promising them the Haj pilgrimage, according to an official statement issued Monday.

The accused was apprehended in the western metropolis September 27 and brought to Bhubaneswar on transit remand, it said.

The arrest was made based on a written complaint filed by one Mir Khursid of the Dhamnagar area in Bhadrak district.

According to the complaint, two Mumbai-based tour and travel agencies had allegedly collected Rs 1.20 crore from 189 prospective Haj pilgrims during the 2019-23 period to arrange for their pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.

They collected the money under two tour packages of Rs 45,786 and Rs 50,786 per individual and the proprietors went on deferring the date of pilgrimage over the years, the statement said.

Subsequently, the proprietors closed down their office and could not be contacted via mobile phones, it said.

The prospective Haj pilgrims found them absconding, the statement said.

The travel agencies neither took the prospective pilgrims to Saudi Arabia nor did they refund the amount, the police statement said.

The economic offence wing has seized mobile phones, money receipts and cheques during the investigation, it added.

PTI

Bhubaneswar/Baripada: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Crime Branch arrested a fraudster involved in the illegal withdrawal of over Rs 9 crore from the account of District Mineral Foundation Trust of Zilla Parishad in Mayurbhanj through clone cheque fraud, a source said Friday.

The EOW sleuths apprehended the accused, Ajmir Mondal, from Nalpur in West Bengal Tuesday. He was brought on transit remand and presented at a court in Balasore Thursday, the source added.

Earlier, two accused persons, namely Pomesh Tembhare and Ghanshyam Ahuja were arrested from Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh respectively.

Based on the complaint of Sujata Kanungo, Chief Manager of Bank of India’s Baripada branch in Mayurbhanj, a case was first registered at the Bhanjapur police station, which was later taken over by the EOW.

Kanungo alleged that illegal transactions of Rs 9,56,76,600 has been made from the account of DMF trust maintained with the bank by producing four cheques April 10 and 18.

“The fraudsters by producing forged or clone cheques managed to transfer Rs 9,56,76,600 from the account of District Mineral Foundation Trust account of Zilla Parishad, Mayurbhanj to two different accounts in the name of PT Constructions & Supplier maintained with Bank of Maharashtra and SK Enterprises maintained with Punjab & Sind Bank. It was also found that the amount was further diverted to many other accounts from the accounts of PT Constructions & Supplier and SK Enterprises,” an EOW source said.

Ajmir was also found involved in two cheque cloning cases registered with EOW, Odisha. This accused is a member of a larger gang having complex networking in different states like Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha.

After his arrest, EOW has got important clues about the entire gang which has been committing such scams for the last four years, an EOW source said.

IANS

Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the state Crime Branch here Saturday claimed to have busted a Rs 600-crore trading scam and arrested the proprietor of a brokerage firm.

EOW Superintendent of Police (SP) Dilip Tripathy said the accused, identified as Saiyyad Jiyajur Rahaman, is a resident of Hooghly district in West Bengal. “Saiyyad runs LFS Broking and PMS Services through which he had duped at least 6,219 investors from Odisha, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Bihar.”

Saiyyad was detained at Kolkata Airport by Bureau of Immigration (BoI) upon his return from Dubai after a look out circular (LOC) was issued against him, said a senior EOW official.

Giving more details about the trading scam, Tripathy said a probe was launched after a complaint was lodged by Arun Kumar Pattnaik, a victim of the fraud. He alleged that LFS Broking and PMS Services had cheated him of more than Rs 20 lakh. “They had lured me by offering 2 per cent interest on the invested amount till the final payment,” Arun said.

After duping the investors, the EOW SP said, Saiyyad used to transfer the funds to the brokerage firm’s sisterly company Arambagh Hotel and Resort. His wives Habiba Begum and Ranjita Mahajan are said to be the directors of the company.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the company has siphoned off nearly Rs 100 crore from investors in Odisha. Initially, he made monthly interest transfers for a brief period, but he stopped it later and went incommunicado.

Notably, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has banned Saiyyad as stock broker for five years following the serious complaint against him.

The EOW has booked Saiyaad under relevant Sections of Odisha Protection of Interests of Depositors (OPID) Act, and produced him before a court here Saturday.

PNN

Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police arrested the director of a ponzi scheme company from West Bengal for allegedly duping investors of more than Rs123 crore.

The accused, identified as Tusar Bhanjo of Hamirpur in Paschim Medinipur of West Bengal, was arrested from his residence in Haridevpur area of Kolkata. He was brought to Bhubaneswar on transit remand, EOW said in a statement Saturday.

The case was registered on the written allegation of one Manmohan Dora of Bhubaneswar against the company Harit Krishi Nidhi Ltd., M/s Transvision Dream Multi Trade Private Limited and its director Bhanjo.

Bhanjo was accused of inducing the complainant and many other investors to invest with his company for high returns like monthly interest of 11 per cent on the invested amount apart from four to five per cent extra commission on adding new members. The Company also promised to provide monthly salary of Rs4,000 on investment of Rs4 lakh, Rs8,000 on investment of Rs8 lakh and so on. In order to induce the investors, Bhanjo was using social media, leaflets, brochures and physical meetings.

Being induced, the informant joined the Harit Krishi Nidhi Company as a member by depositing Rs4,000 in 2023. Subsequently, the informant deposited Rs2 lakh in the company’s bank account after which he was able to open three wallet IDs in which he had deposited a total Rs2.17 lakh and got 11 per cent interest only for one month. Thereafter, no amount was paid to him by the accused, who absconded with the invested money of thousands of investors including the informant.

As found during investigation, arrested accused Tusar Bhanjo who had earlier formed M/s Transvision Dream Multi Trade Pvt. Ltd. registered with ROC, Cuttack, opened Harit Krishi Nidhi Ltd. in the year 2023, which was incorporated with ROC, West Bengal.

PNN

Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the state Crime Branch has arrested a man for cheating 53 investors of Rs 1.2 crore on the pretext of supplying LED monitors for advertisement, official sources said Tuesday. According to EOW sources, Bimalananda Bhuyan was arrested May 18 last under Section 406, 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120B of the IPC and was produced before the Court of ACJM-II, Lucknow and brought to the City here on the strength of transit remand. The accused was produced before the designated court under OPID Act, Cuttack Tuesday.

A case has been registered on the allegation of Bikash Podar of Sambalpur against Bhuyan and his wife Rammi Bhuyan for cheating 53 investors of Rs 1.2 crore on the pretext of supplying LED monitors for advertisements through their LLP ‘Quick Click AD Media’ during 2017-18. “They were inducing the general public to invest with them to get lucrative profit from the advertisements. Both Bhuyan and his wife’ being the partners of ‘Quick Click Ad Media’, during the period 2017- 18, induced the general public to invest through two of their schemes to purchase LED monitors to be placed at prominent places for advertisements given by different agencies,” EOW said, adding that the couple misappropriated the money.

The LLP had its activities mainly in Khurda, Koraput, Nayagarh, Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Rourkela, Sambalpur, and Ganjam, the EOW said. To evade police arrest, the couple was absconding for years. Bhuyan was hiding himself separately from his wife and working with a snack company in Lucknow from where he was arrested.

During the absconding period, Bhuyan went to Dubai where he stayed for 1.5 years and also formed a company ‘Empire Global Capital’. EOW said the accused Rammi was arrested in connection with the case a few days ago. “She was working with a real estate company at Mumbai by changing her Aaadhaar,” the agency said. The EOW has seized a lot of incriminating materials from the accused.

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Police has arrested a person for allegedly duping his employer of Rs 2.63 crore, officials said Thursday.

The accused, who was working as an accountant with a private company, ‘defrauded’ the firm using forged documents, they said.

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) Wednesday apprehended him from Bhubaneswar, the officials said.

PTI

Bhubaneswar/ Baripada: The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police arrested a man for allegedly swindling Rs 9.6 crore money of District Mineral Foundation (DMF), Mayurbhanj, an official said Monday.

The arrested accused has been identified as Pomesh Tembhare, a resident of Balaghat district in Madhya Pradesh. He was arrested April 26 and brought to Bhubaneswar on transit remand and will be produced before the designated court at Balasore Monday, the EOW official said.

The arrest was made on the basis of a police case registered by the chief manager of Bank of India, Baripada.

According to the police, the fraudster managed to transfer Rs 9.56 crore by producing clone cheques.

Out of the illegally transferred amount, Rs 5.04 crore was blocked and Rs 13.56 lakh lying in 33 accounts have been frozen, they said.

Pomesh was hiding in a Naxal-infested village with his mobile phone switched off. The Odisha EOW team with the help of local police and CAPF arrested him.

During the investigation, the EOW found that Pomesh is a member of a larger gang having a complex network in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha.

The Odisha Police is conducting further investigations to reach out to the other fraudsters.

PTI

Bhubaneswar: Two persons have been arrested for allegedly duping investors of around Rs 15 crore in Odisha by promising handsome returns in crypto schemes, police said.

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police apprehended Ved Prakash from Anupgarh in Rajasthan April 10 and Sudhir Patel from Sundargarh in the state April 14, they said.

The arrests were made on the basis of an FIR lodged by a “duped investor” of western Odisha in December 2023.

Pram Sagar Khamari had said in his FIR that he invested more than Rs 48 lakh in crypto schemes and received a meagre return of Rs 20,000, the official said.

“Promising high returns in investment in different crypto schemes, the accused persons have cheated around 500 investors of more than Rs 15 crore mainly in Puri, Bhubaneswar, Sambalpur, Jharsuguda, Sundargarh and Bargarh districts of Odisha and in Maharashtra, too,” he said.

Further investigation is underway.

PTI

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Police’s Economic Offence Wing (EOW) has arrested an absconding woman allegedly involved in a cheating case of Rs 2crore from Mumbai, an official said Wednesday.

The accused, Rammi Bhuyan alias Rammi Pusty, was apprehended by the sleuths from the Kalyan area of East Mumbai in Maharashtra March 24. She was working in a real estate company with a fake identity.

Meanwhile, her husband and the prime accused in the case, Bimalananda Bhuyan, is still at large.

The sleuths suspect he has fled to Dubai after committing the fraud.

The couple was wanted in the fraud case registered on the basis of a complaint lodged by one Bikash Podar of Sambalpur district in 2020.

Podar alleged in his complaint that the accused couple has reportedly duped 53 investors of Rs 1.2 crore on the pretext of supplying LED monitors for advertisements through their LLP Company “Quick Click AD Media”.

The company was registered with the Registrar of Companies (ROC), Chhattisgarh in the year 2017 with its head office at Shyamnagar in Raipur while different branch offices were located at Jagdalpur, Chhattisgarh and Jaydev Vihar, Bhubaneswar.

“During 2017-18, they floated advertisements to attract the public for high returns on their investments with the LLP Company for purchasing LED monitors to be placed at the conspicuous public places to run the advertisements given by different agencies,” said an EOW official.

The accused couple through their company collected public deposits that run in crores and finally, without purchasing any LED monitors absconded, and misappropriated the collected amounts, he added.

The company had duped many persons in various districts of Odisha including, Koraput, Khurda, Sambalpur, and Ganjam.

IANS

Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police arrested a woman for her alleged involvement in a Rs2 crore fraud case, an officer said.

The accused identified as Rammi Bhuyan was arrested from Mumbai March 24 and produced before a designated court Wednesday.

Rammi and her husband Bimalananda Bhuyan have allegedly cheated more than a hundred investors of around Rs 2 crore on the pretext of providing high returns through their company, an EOW official said.

During the period 2017-18, they induced the general public to invest in two of their schemes to purchase LED monitors to be placed in prominent places for advertisement purposes by different agencies.

The couple collected public deposits that run in crores and finally without purchasing any LED monitors absconded, and misappropriated the collected amounts, the police officer said.

The company was active mainly in Khurda, Koraput, Nayagarh, Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Sambalpur and Ganjam districts of Odisha. It also spread its activities in Chhattisgarh, he said.

When an FIR was filed against the couple, they absconded to evade arrest for years.

Rammi was working with a real estate company in Kalyan, East Mumbai by changing her name. Bimalananda is still absconding, the officer added.

PTI  

Balasore: The OPID Court, Balasore, has convicted Director-Cum-Promoter of M/s Auroxa Deal Multitrade (OPC) Pvt. Ltd and two up-line members for cheating Rs.10 crore from 500 investors.

The court delivered the judgment Wednesday holding accused Babu Singh Kushwaha, Director-Cum-Promoter of M/s Auroxa Deal Multitrade (OPC) Pvt. Ltd. guilty and sentenced him to undergo seven years RI and fine of Rs 3.45 lakhs.

Similarly, up-line members Sarat Kumar Nayak and Pravat Ranjan Das were also held guilty and sentenced to undergo Rigorous Imprisonment for five years and fine of Rs1.25 lakh each.

On default of fine for all the convicts, the OPID court ordered that they will undergo further imprisonment of one year each.

Further, M/s Auroxa Deal Multitrade (OPC) Pvt. Ltd. represented through its Director Babu Singh Khushwaha was found guilty and ordered to pay a fine of Rs 2 lakh.

A case was registered pursuant to an enquiry conducted by EOW on a petition filed by one Chandra Kanta Dash & others against M/s Auroxa Deal Multitrade (OPC) Pvt. Ltd. and its Director & Promoter on the allegation of duping as many as 500 gullible depositors of more than Rs 10 crore under false promise of high returns on their deposits/investment in various schemes launched by the company.

The convict Babu Singh Kushwaha who is the lone Director of the company which under various lucrative schemes/ packages promoted direct selling of various household goods/Electronic goods with high returns having cashback offers.

The collection of deposits by the company under the cover/ mask of direct selling was nothing but running of Ponzi schemes.

M/s Auroxa Deal Multitrade (OPC) Pvt. Ltd. had floated various lucrative schemes/ packages under which products like LED TV, Smart TV, Trolley bag, Mixture Grinder, LED Smart Fan are being offered to the public under direct selling with high returns having cashback offers.

The company also offered various reward incomes like star Achiever to Emerald Star Achiever with reward income of Rs 5000 /Mobile phone / Furniture depending upon the target achievement within 30 days to 150 days for enrolling downline depositors.

The M/s Auroxa Deal Multitrade (OPC) Pvt. Ltd. through its Director Babu Singh Kushwaha and up-line members Sarat Nayak and Pravat Ranjan Das has collected Rs.10 Crore from more than 500 investors.

The Company had its activities mainly in Balasore and Bhadrak Districts and their peripheral areas.
During investigation Babu Singh Kushwaha was arrested from Gwalior whereas Sarat Kumar Nayak and Prabhat Ranjan Das were arrested from Balasore.

Special Public Prosecutor OPID Court, Balasore Pranab Kumar Panda was conducting the prosecution. EOW sources said during the last one year alone, six cases of EOW Odisha have resulted in conviction.

UNI 

Bhubaneswar: Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police has arrested two persons including a banker in connection with a Rs3.70 crore bank fraud case.

The prime accused Sarojkanta Mohapatra was arrested from Cuttack Saturday while the other accused, Angel Mishra was apprehended from Puri Sunday.

The duo was arrested on the basis of an FIR filed by Sandeep Pattnaik, General Manager, IDBI Bank, Bhubaneswar.

Patnaik alleged in his FIR that Mohapatra, the former branch manager in connivance with accused Mishra and the ex-assets officer of IDBI’s Dandamukundapur Branch, Tanmaya Maharana had misappropriated public money to the tune of Rs3.7 crore and illegally sanctioned 35 fictitious loans (mostly MUDRA loans), in favour of their close relatives using forged documents.

“It was found that the government cash of Rs3.7 crore was deposited in two bank accounts of Block Development Officer (BDO), Pipili block maintained with IDBI Bank, Dandamukundapur Branch, Pipili. During 2018, BDO, Pipili, had requested the bank for Flexi Fixed Deposit (FFD) of the above amount, and as per the advice of former branch manager, accused Mohapatra, the then BDO of Pipili had issued seven “Yourself” cheques for the purpose,” said EOW sources.

The BDO office was also falsely intimated by the accused that the amount had been deposited in flexi account and also provided details of interest to be accrued upon the deposit, the source added.

The matter came to fore when the BDO sought the details of the Flexi Account and the statements of the account in 2022. The bank officials informed the BDO that no such FFD has ever been created from the accounts of BDO, Pipili.

Following the confusion, the bank launched an internal investigation and found out that Rs3.70 crore of Pipili Block Office deposited with the bank has been misappropriated by the accused bank officials, the source said.

The probe also revealed that Mohapatra and Maharana, the respective ex-branch manager and ex-asset officer of the particular branch, had fraudulently created 35 fictitious MUDRA loans amounting to Rs10 lakhs each in the name of their close relatives without the knowledge of the loanees who neither applied nor availed the loans.

Meanwhile, Mohapatra and Maharana closed the Mudra loan accounts by diverting the amount of the Pipili Block Office to avoid getting caught during the audit. The loan amounts were found to have been transferred to the SBI account of accused Mishra, who is a close friend of prime accused Mohapatra.

Notably, EOW had arrested accused Maharana in the case a few days ago.

Mishra is also involved in another fraud case registered at the Khandagiri Police Station here in September 2022. The prime accused Mohapatra is also involved in a Rs18 crore bank fraud case registered by the Bhopal STF, Madhya Pradesh Police in 2020.

IANS

Bhubaneswar: A man was arrested from Andhra Pradesh by the Odisha Police’s Economic Offence Wing (EOW) in connection with its investigation into an inter-state job fraud racket, officials said.

Akashpu Veera Chaitanya, a resident of West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, was produced before a court in Cuttack Monday, they said.

This was the fourth arrest made in connection with the case, which was registered based on a suo motu inquiry conducted by the EOW on a fake advertisement published in local newspapers, they added.

Earlier, the agency had arrested Mohammad Sanaullah, who was identified as the mastermind, one Sakshi Jain from Hyderabad and one Surat Dalai from Balasore.

The gang published the advertisement in newspapers in different states. They collected Rs 1,000 from each candidate as an application fee for jobs, and then cheated the aspirants, officials said.

The gang allegedly collected crores of rupees from job aspirants, they said.

Chaitanya was arrested as it was found during the investigation that Rs 60 lakh of this money went to his account, they said.

The racket was being run from Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad, officials said, adding that it was operating in at least six states, including Odisha, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

A laptop, three mobile phones, four pen drives, a hard disk and debit cards were seized from Chaitanya.

The investigation would continue, officials said.

PTI

Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha police arrested a Haryana man for his alleged involvement in a pan-India courier fraud of Rs 5.58 crore, a police officer said on Wednesday.

The accused, identified as Rajat Kumar of Mohali, was arrested on February 4 from Himachal Pradesh and brought to Bhubaneswar on transit remand after producing him before a local court at Paonta Sahib, Himachal Pradesh, the EOW said in a press statement.

The man was arrest in a case registered on the complaint of Ratna Tripathy, a journalist of Bhubaneswar. The accused in association with others have cheated Rs 1.5 lakh from the complaint.

During the investigation, the EOW found that it was a huge scam using the name of courier companies.

Following the arrest, the EOW has got vital clues about the real mastermind of this scam and the fraudsters, who are sitting in Dubai. Efforts are on to arrest them. So far, 17 incriminating bank accounts have been frozen in this case, the economic office wing said.

PTI

Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offence Wing(EOW) of Odisha police has arrested a builder on the charges of duping 35 investors of more than Rs 4 crore on the pretext of providing the victims flats in Bhubaneswar.

The accused, Deepak Kumar Chhotray, is a resident of Delanga in Puri district.

Chhotray, the managing director of M/s GLF Infratech Pvt. Ltd, has been arrested in connection with a case registered on the basis of a complaint lodged by one Anil Kumar Panda, retired employee of NALCO.

The complainant alleged that Chhotray had collected huge amount of money from 35 persons, most of them are former employees of the central government PSU, NALCO, promising to provide landed plots and flats in the residential project of the GLF Infratech at Patrapada mauza and later at Gadakana areas of the city.

“It was found during probe that the accused Chhotray without having any land falsely promised 35 prospective buyers to provide them with plots/flats at Patrapada area of Bhubaneswar in the year 2016. Accordingly, one MoU was signed by the accused builder and the buyers,” said EOW sources.

Meanwhile, accused Chhotray informed the buyers that the proposed land at Patrapada could not be arranged by the company and promised them to provide flats at its new project at Gadakana area of the city.

He collected Rs 12 lakhs each from the buyers in different installments between 2016 and 2019.

However, the accused or his company neither provided the promised flat or plot nor returned the invested amount to the buyers despite the lapse of several years.

“Even, no land has been acquired by the builder for the construction of residential flats till today. The builder Company and its MD thus cheated more than Rs 4 crores from the intending buyers by executing false documents,” EOW sources added.

The EOW sleuths on Wednesday arrested Chhotray who was produced before the designated court under OPID Act at Cuttack Thursday.

IANS 

New Delhi: Payment app BharatPe’s former MD Ashneer Grover and his wife Thursday approached the Delhi High Court seeking quashing of the Look Out Circular (LOC) issued against them in connection with the investigation in a cheating and forgery case.

Justice Subramonium Prasad, before whom the matter came up for hearing, listed it for May 8 saying the investigation in the case registered by the Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) is at a nascent stage.

“It is too hot in the day for this court to intervene now. Come after sometime. The investigation is at a nascent stage and they will take some time to investigate,” the high court said.

It further said that at this juncture, it will not be correct to say that the LOC is completely unjustified.

As an interim relief, Grover and his wife Madhuri Jain Grover have sought suspension of the LOC issued against them with a further direction to the authorities not to interfere with or prevent their right to travel abroad.

The court asked the authorities concerned to consider the application of the two petitioners for permission to travel abroad for two days.

It also noted that Grovers’ plea seeking quashing of the FIR lodged by the EOW is also pending in the high court.

The counsel representing the Grover couple submitted that they have cooperated with the investigation and there are multiple proceedings against them.

They sought quashing of the LOC on the ground that it was unwarranted as the petitioners were regularly appearing before the investigating officer and cooperating in the investigation.

They were informed for the first time that LOC was issued against them when they were detained at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here November 16, 2023, while they were scheduled to travel to the US.

After being detained, they were informed that the LOC was operational from November 6, 2023.

In May last year, the EOW filed an FIR against Grover, his wife Madhuri and others under eight sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating and dishonesty), 467 and 468 (forgery) and 471 (using forged documents as genuine) for an alleged Rs 81 crore fraud after a complaint by fintech unicorn BhartPe.

BharatPe in the complaint alleged that Grover and his family caused damages of about Rs 81.3 crore through illegitimate payments to bogus human resource consultants, inflated and undue payments through pass-through vendors connected to the accused, sham transactions in input tax credit and payment of penalty to GST authorities, illegal payment to travel agencies, forged invoices by Madhuri and destruction of evidence.

Madhuri was the head of controls at BharatPe and was fired in 2022 after a forensic audit revealed several irregularities. Subsequently, Grover resigned as CEO in March 2022.

PTI