Bhubaneswar, Sept. 25: The court of chief judicial magistrate, Khurda, today convicted two managing directors of the East Coast Mutual Trust for Trade and Commerce, a money deposit collection company, for duping around Rs 10 crore from thousands of investors.

The court sentenced Prabhat Nanda and Rabeya Begum to five years' imprisonment and also fined them Rs 50,000 each.

The duo were later sent to Khurda jail under tight security. They were convicted under Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 4, 5 and 6 of Prize Chit and Money Circulation Scheme (Banning) Act, 1978.

Khurda Town police had arrested the duo on November 5, 2013, on the basis of a complaint filed by one of the investors, Ahmed Khan.

Khan had alleged that the sham deposit collection company had duped him of Rs 1.5 lakh.

The duo had opened their office at Keranga village in Khurda district in 2010 and collected around Rs 10 crore from the investors. The firm had promised to double the money in a few years.

However, the company shut down its office in 2013 after complaints of cheating had poured in against it.

In another development, the police are trying to nab Sultana Raziya and Rafiq Khan, the two absconding office-bearers of the firm. The investors had filed a police complaint against the duo as well.

The investors are demanding their money back.

"Most of us had invested our money to meet various needs, including the marriage of our daughters and educational expenditure of our children. We need our money to be returned as our lives have become miserable," said an investor.

In a similar incident in April, a Mayurbhanj court had convicted three office-bearers of one India Star and India Info Line, a money deposit collection company.

The Ponzi firm, which was opened at Betanati in Mayurbhanj in 2011, had collected a huge amount of money from depositors promising them double return in one year. However, the fraudulent company closed down its offices exactly a year later.