Bhubaneswar: The economic offences wing of crime branch on Thursday arrested the chairman-cum-managing director of money deposit collection company Shree Bhumi Construction Limited that allegedly duped investors of crores of rupees promising them attractive returns.

The police arrested the accused Chhotrai Majhi, 40, from Hyderabad on Thursday and brought him to the state on transit remand.

The accused, along with others, collected investments worth Rs 15 crore from across the state between June 2011 and March 2015. "The Ponzi firm started its office at Jayadev Vihar in Bhubanesswar in 2011 in the guise of a construction company. Subsequently, the company forayed into sectors such as real estate, mining and hotel," an EOW official said.

However, it shutdown its branches in the state soon after the Supreme Court ordered a CBI probe into the money-laundering scam. The firm had offices in Bhubaneswar, Puri, Khurda, Mayurbhanj, Balasore and Keonjhar.

Threat caller held

Police on Friday arrested a 53-year-old person for allegedly calling the official landline of Biju Patnaik International Airport and threatening to trigger a blast in the area. The police said the accused, Basant Prusty, haling from Nayagarh district has been making similar calls to other numbers in frustration after separating with his wife few months ago.

The police said Prusty, a newspaper hawker, was staying at Khandagiri.

"He lost his mental stability after separating from his wife and started calling various police stations and other landline numbers. He used to get the landline numbers from various advertisements published in newspapers," said a police officer.

Deputy commissioner of police, Bhubaneswar, Anup Kumar Sahoo said the accused made several hoax calls to the airport office out of frustration.

"He was arrested under Section 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code," said Sahoo.