Bhubaneswar, Aug. 9: The CBI today conducted raids on multiple locations in the state, including two places in the city, in connection with the business activities of Adarsh Group of Companies, a firm involved in money deposit collection.

Sources said the company had allegedly cheated investors of over Rs 50 crore after promising them very high returns.

The CBI conducted raids on the residences of chairman-cum-managing director of the group Bijay Rout and three of its directors — Kamalakant Dhrupati, Ramakant Mahakurh and Bikram Pradhan — along with its offices at various other places in the state. Sources said more than 20 premises across the state were raided.

The CBI raided on the residence of Rout and director Dhrupati’s houses in Bhadrak. Searches were also conducted on Mahakurh’s Kuchinda residence in Sambalpur district and Pradhan’s Balasore house. Besides, raids were conducted on regional offices of the firm in several district headquarters towns.

Some of the offices are located at Saheed Nagar and Nayapali in Bhubaneswar, Panikoili in Jajpur, Salepur in Cuttack and Sambalpur.

An official said the first case against the company was lodged in Bhadrak, where it had substantial business presence and a large number of people had been duped. Later, complaints against the firm also came from other regions of the state.

In Bhadrak and Balasore, the firm had cheated people over Rs 5 crore and Bhadrak police, after registering the first case against the firm, arrested all these office-bearers.

There is a speculation that the investigating agency is also looking into the possible involvement of politicians in the company.

“We have seized many documents, which will be helpful in our investigation. We are looking for other office-bearers of the firm, and in the coming days, we will conduct more such raids,” said an officer of the CBI team.

In the past few weeks, the investigating agency had conducted raids on the offices and residences of officials of deposit collection companies such as Navdiganta Capital Services, Midas Group and Green India.