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Bhubaneswar, July 17: The economic offences wing of crime branch today arrested a former chairman-cum-managing director and the present managing director of Flourish India, a money deposit collection company, on charges of duping investors.
The duo, identified as Prasanna Das and Sri Ballav Prasad Nayak, were arrested by the sleuths from Uttara. Das, an intermediate passout, used to be former CMD, while Nayak, a graduate, was the current MD. The company has allegedly cheated around 40,000 investors, mostly in rural areas. Sleuths said preliminary investigations had revealed that the fraud could be worth around Rs100 crore.
Though the investors had earlier lodged several complaints with various police stations across the state, the economic offences wing registered a case on Tuesday. The company, which was formed in June 2006, has 132 branches in the state. The group was also running a public school in the city.
“The company has a number of investor schemes and was collecting amounts starting from Rs 5 to lakhs promising investors high returns and higher interest rates than banks,” said deputy inspector general, crime branch and in charge of the economic offences wing Rajesh Kumar.
Officials of the economic offences wing said they had identified some properties of the group, which will be seized shortly. “We have written to the officials concerned to freeze their bank accounts,” said Kumar.
Hundred of agents were present in front of the office demanding that the money be returned to the investors. “We are not going back home as investors have threatened us with dire consequences should we fail to return their money,” said Gouri Prasad Jena, an agent of the company from Sambalpur district.
The main office of the company used to function from Sishupalgarh on the outskirts of the city before it shut shop in January. Economic offences wing sources said Das had handed over charge to Nayak after he failed to return money to the investors.
Odisha police has so far lodged more than 85 cases against fraud deposit collection companies whereas the economic offences wing has so far lodged 27 cases against 24 companies.
