Bhubaneswar, May 31: The city police today detained another director of Artha Tatwa group of companies. He is being interrogated to find out his involvement in the multi-crore cheating by the deposit collection company.

Though officials did not mention the name of the detained person, they said that he was one of the influential directors, who were involved in the company’s decision-making process.

“We are trying to collect evidence against him and once we get the proof, we will arrest him,” said a police officer.

Yesterday, when the police had produced before the court Manoj Pattnaik and Sree Krishna Padhee, two other directors of the company, senior officials had dropped hints about the arrest of two more directors Sambit Khuntia and Satyabrat Padhee within a day or two.

While Padhee, who was running a vernacular daily, was arrested in connection with the cheating case filed by former police officer Sukumar Panigrahi, Pattnaik was arrested for cheating people through gold loan schemes that the sham deposit collection companies floated.

Till date the city police have arrested four office-bearers of the company including chairman-cum-managing director Pradeep Sethi, while around 30 people have been named in the FIR. Officials said that there were several people in the board of directors who were fictitious.

Kharavela Nagar police have also prepared a list of 49 people, including some mediapersons and businessmen, who had taken money from the company in the form of loan or other favours and not returned it.

“We are going to summon these people and ask them about their involvements,” said deputy commissioner of police Nitinjeet Singh.

The police have managed to freeze around 245 bank accounts of Artha Tatwa group of companies and seized at least 10 vehicles, including a super-bike and few luxurious cars. Officials said that as many as 27 cases have been registered against this company all over the state. “The number may go up as everyday more people are coming up with fresh complaints,” said the official.

In another development, Balasore police found cash worth more than Rs 1,000 crore siphoned by deposit a collection company named Green Ray International that was involved in multi-level marketing. The company with branches at 100 places across the country and even abroad started its operations in 2008.

With its Odisha head office in Jaleswar, the company was withdrawing money from investors under several gold loan schemes. An official of the district crime branch said that the company had collected Rs 520 crore from depositors in the last two years luring people to invest in its gold loan schemes. It had made false claims about owning a gold mine in South Africa.

Nagendra Nayak, deputy superintendent of police, Balsore district crime wing, said that the scale of fraud by this company was very high.

“As we do not have adequate expertise to handle such cases, we are handing over the case to the economic offence wing of the Crime Branch,’ said Nayak. He said that till date 5 cases have been registered against the company in which 10 persons have been arrested.

However, all the four directors of the company — Mir Sahiruddin (managing director), Khalik Saha, Ayub Saha and Mir Tahiruddin — are absconding. The police said that during investigation they found these accused possessing Nigerian visa.