Office of the Seashore Group in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, July 3: The crime branch today asked the Odisha Renewable Energy Development Agency to cancel the MoU with deposit collection company Seashore Group for setting up a solar plant at Titilagarh.

In 2012, Seashore had inked an MoU with the agency in this regard and deposited Rs 2.5 crore for the project with it. However, work on the project is yet to begin.

Additional director-general of the crime branch B.K. Sharma said: “We have written a letter to the agency. We have asked them to forfeit the company’s deposit money since Rs 2.5 crore is a big amount, which can later be distributed among the investors.”

Sharma said they had also seized the Mercedes of Seashore chief Prasanta Das from Mumbai.

“We had definite information that Das had a Mercedes, which he had bought with the depositor’s money. We finally managed to locate it.”

On June 29, the crime branch’s economic offence wing seized 1,000 silver coins weighing one quintal from Das’s bank locker. The coins, each weighing 100 grams, carry the logo of Seashore.

The crime branch is questioning a city-based jewellery shop to find out how many coins the company has bought from it. Sources in the crime branch said the coins might have been made for the gold and silver business of the group.

On May 21, the State Commercial Taxes Department cancelled the gold and silver trading licence of Seashore.

The crime branch has sealed a 22-acre farmhouse at Barla village near Satyabadi in Puri district.

It also sealed another 15-acre farmhouse in Angul and another at Betnoti in Mayurbhanj. So far, it has seized 15 immovable properties of the group.

Though the crime branch is yet to assess the value of the seized property, rough estimates have put it at Rs 100 crore. The company has swindled nearly Rs 700 crore from investors.

The crime branch has already sealed Seashore’s offices in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.

On the other hand, the investors will get back their money only after the Odisha Protection of Interests of Depositors (in financial establishment) Bill gets the President’s assent. Once the bill becomes an act, it will empower the government to liquidate the properties of Seashore Group and distribute the proceeds among the investors.