The two-year-long chase in the Rs 120-crore Calcutta Stock Exchange scam hit a home run early on Wednesday with the arrest of alleged kingpin Alok Biyani.

The man behind Biyani Securities Private Limited was leaving for Australia when he was stopped at the Dum Dum airport immigration counter.

Biyani was produced in Bankshal court before chief metropolitan magistrate Amit Chakraborty on Wednesday.

His bail prayer — on the grounds of being “seriously ill” — was rejected and he was remanded in police custody till September 15, for duping the Calcutta Stock Exchange.

The public prosecutor said his remand would hasten the process of chargesheeting all those accused in the case and facilitate investigation.

The 36-year-old stockbroker involved in the scam that had rocked Lyons Range will now be interrogated by several allied agencies, including the enforcement directorate, police said.

According to stock exchange sources, Biyani was away in Australia ever since his father Harish Chandra Biyani, along with two other defaulters, Dinesh Kumar Singhania and Ashok Kumar Poddar, were rounded up in September 2002.

He had failed to appear before police for interrogation last year and was declared a proclaimed offender.

The Biyani breakthrough comes more than a year after Kamal Parekh, former president of Calcutta Stock Exchange, was arrested.

Biyani was allegedly operating the Australian businesses of Dinesh Dalmia, promoter-managing director of DSQ Software Ltd, a prime accused in the scam.

Alok and his father were accused of duping the stock exchange of several crores in connivance with Dalmia. They had presented 10 lakh shares of DSQ Software to square off their liability with the exchange, but all shares proved to be false.

According to police, DSQ Software had allegedly issued 1.4 crore physical shares, equivalent to the number of shares already present in the demat (dematerialised) format with identical certificate numbers. The million fake shares deposited with the exchange are alleged to be from amongst these 1.4 crore shares.

“We are on the lookout for Dalmia as well. There are several players in this stock exchange scam and we hope to submit the chargesheet soon,” said city detective chief Peeyush Pandey.