Bhubaneswar/Cuttack, June 16: The crime branch today sent a team to Gujarat for further investigation into the money laundering activities of Oscar Group. The chairman of the Ponzi company, Pravash Chandra Rout, was arrested on June 9.

Sources in the crime branch said the team would meet the investors in Gujarat who had invested their hard-earned money expecting returns in high interest. The team would also investigate the allegation of the involvement of some Odia actors in promoting the company in Surat.

Odia actors, including comedian Tatwa Prakash Satpathy aka Pappu Pom Pom, have allegedly endorsed the Ponzi firm through stage shows and movie scripts.

So far, investigation has revealed that the group had 49 branches in Odisha and 58 in Gujarat. The company had also opened six branches in Maharashtra. It collected some Rs 230 crore from hapless investors between 2010 and 2014 assuring them of high returns.

Three cases were registered against Oscar Group in Surat.

In another related development, the auction of the immovable properties of Safex Infra India Limited that it had garnered by duping people through its deposit collection schemes failed to attract any bids today.

The online auction was carried out following an order from the Designated Court (Cuttack), which had directed to sell the attached properties of Safex Infra India Limited by public auction and release the sale proceeds for equitable distribution among the depositors the money realised out of the sale.

No bidders showed up for the e-auction of 84 plots of land under Chatrapur and Purushottampur tehsils in Ganjam district. Around 14 acres were offered today with the total offset price fixed at Rs 1.54 crores.

Bibhuti Bhusan Das, the additional district magistrate (ADM) of Cuttack who had put up the attached properties of Safex Infra India Limited for auction through a web portal, said: "As no bidders responded today, the properties will be put up for e-auction again. The date will be fixed soon."

The Economic Offence Wing of State Crime Branch had attached the properties of Safex Infra India Limited for duping nearly Rs 25 crore from people by luring them to invest in its various projects on the prtext of providing high interest rates.