Bhubaneswar, May 27: Police today arrested a former director of the fraud deposit collection company, Artha Tatwa Multipurpose Co-operative Society Limited.
Besides, crime branch officials took the director of a real estate-cum-finance company, Safex Infra India Limited, into custody.
City police this morning arrested former director of Arth Tatwa (AT) group of companies Jagabandhu Panda, 42, on charges of cheating people while being in the AT. Panda was a director of the company during 2008 and 2011, but he had left the group to join another credit co-operative society — Swastik India Multi-state Credit Co-operative Society.
Panda, who hailed from Balasore, was sent to jail after a local court rejected his bail plea. Deputy commissioner of police Nitinjeet Singh said the police had arrested him because there were several allegations against him.
Panda’s arrest came at a time when a group of people were staging a protest in front of the Swastik India office at Bamikhal today. The investors alleged that Swastik India had cheated them of more than Rs 9 crore promising them of high rates of interest.
After the police officials promised action against the company officials, the mob stopped the protest.
Yesterday, chairman-cum-managing director of the AT group Pradeep Sethi, arrested on May 12, was sent to jail after eight-day police remand. The police had seized around 245 bank accounts of Sethi and the AT group. Besides, 10 vehicles, including luxury cars and a cruiser type motorcycle, have also been seized from him. The cops said they would seize more vehicles.
In another development, the crime branch sleuths arrested director of Safex Infra India Limited P. Chinmaya Subuddhi from Berhampur. Subuddhi was sent to jail after rejection of his bail plea today.
Deputy inspector general of the crime branch in charge of the economic offence wing Rajesh Kumar said they had conducted raids and arrested Subuddhi, who had been absconding since September 12. “The company had cheated people of cash worth Rs 10 crore,” said Kumar.
