Bhubaneswar, Sept. 18: The state crime branch's economic offences wing has arrested two office-bearers of sham deposit collection firm Sagarika Realtor Projects India Ltd for allegedly duping investors in the state to the tune of Rs 3 crore.
The sleuths today produced the accused, Sanjit Bhowmik and Mithun Chatterjee - both directors of the Ponzi firm - in a Cuttack court after they had brought the duo under transit remand from Bengal.
Police said the Bengal-based company had its head office at Bolpur in Birbhum district.
The firm had also a branch office in Cuttack, through which it had allegedly collected investments to the tune of Rs 3 crore from investors from Cuttack, Puri, Jagatsinghpur, Dhenkanal and Nayagarh. The branch office had been operating in Cuttack between 2009 and 2013.
'Both the accused were arrested from Bolpur in Bengal. The firm collected investment on the pretext of giving high interest between 12 and 15 per cent, but later shut down the branch. In December last year, a case had been registered on the basis of a complaint filed by one of the duped investors, Rohit Kumar Nayak, a Cuttack resident,' said an official.
In March, the economic offences wing had arrested firm director Sibu Das and its Odisha head Satyen Manik from Midnapore in Bengal in connection with the fraud. The police said the firm had also floated two sister concerns - Sagarika Mutual Benefits Funds Ltd and Sagarika Network Marketing Pvt Ltd.
The police said the company had been floated in 2010 and used to offer lucrative offers to lure investors. 'We suspect the firm of investing the money collected from its branch office in the state in real estate in Bengal. We are investigating further to trace the mode of investment of the money,' said the official.
Both the accused were arrested under the Indian Penal Code's several sections, including 471 (using as genuine a forged document), 120B (punishment of criminal conspiracy), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 420 (cheating).
