The branch office of ICore E-Services Limited on Kalimati Road in Sakchi on Monday. Picture by Animesh Sengupta

A group of 12 investors on Monday lodged a complaint with Bagbera police, accusing a Calcutta-based non-banking finance company (NBFC) and its Jamshedpur branch employees of swindling over Rs 5 lakh of their money.

Apparently, six months ago, ICore E-Services Ltd lured investors from modest backgrounds by promising them handsome annual dividends of “around 25 per cent”. It wound up the city branch office at Kalimati Road in Sakchi in August.

None of the investors had received a penny.

Investor Raju Kachhap, who had pumped in Rs 1.2 lakh of his savings, the highest amount in the group, said he along with 11 others, including two women, all residents of suburban Bagbera, had been tapped by company agent Rakhal Das.

“We got interested as we were promised really good annual dividends. Last week, after not getting any word from the company for the past two months, we went to the Sakchi branch office. But, we found the company office under lock and key,” he said.

Aggrieved investor S.K. Giri, who had put in Rs 85,000, added that he had done some investigation of his own.

“I searched for the agent (Rakhal Das) who stayed at Parsudih, but he had vacated his residence. I even went to his village home at Rajnagar in Seraikela-Kharsawan district, but found that he had fled from there too,” Giri said.

Bagbera officer-in-charge (OC) Rajesh Ranjan confirmed the complaint related to financial misappropriation. The OC said that the police would contact the company’s head office in Calcutta.