Bhubaneswar, March 20: Police today arrested the managing director of deposit collection company - Safex Indian Infra Private Limited - for allegedly duping investors of more than Rs 15 crore.

Saheed Nagar police arrested the Ponzi firm's managing director Firoz Khan this morning from Jayadev Vihar.

He has been handed over to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for further inquiry.

According to sources, in t he morning the police were tipped off about Khan's presence in Bhubaneswar.

They raided the house where he was staying and arrested him.

Khan was on the run since the CBI began investigation into the multi-crore money laundering scam last year.

The company was into illegal money circulation business with a monthly turnover of nearly Rs 1 crore. It was also involved in land allotment schemes in several districts of Odisha.

In January last year, special investigation team of the CBI raided the houses of some directors and key employees of Safex Indian Infra Pvt Ltd in Berhampur, Chhatrapur, Balasore, Sambalpur and Bhubaneswar.

Following the raid, the directors of the company, B. Chinmay Subudhi and Purna Chandra Biswal, were arrested, but Khan escaped from the spot.

The economic offences wing (EOW) of state crime branch has so far arrested eight officials of the company, including some key directors and vice-president Deepak Sahu. The arrest of Khan today takes the number to nine.

The EOW sought the permission of the state finance department last year to liquidate the assets of Safex to facilitate refund of money to the duped investors. Following this, a designated court in Cuttack gave orders to confiscate the properties of the firm.

The EOW had confiscated properties of the company that includes 15 acres and bank deposits worth Rs 5 lakh. Safex India has allegedly duped more than a thousands of investors.

The company is among the 44 deposit collection companies being probed by the SIT of CBI.