Bhubaneswar: The economic offences wing of the crime branch conducted a one-day workshop here on Wednesday to impart training on effective ways to investigate into the fraud committed by money deposit collection companies.

The police also urged the duped investors to lodge complaints against Ponzi firms.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), and baReserve Bank of India and charted accountants also took part in the workshop.

"Field-level investigating officials and supervising officers attended the programme and training was imparted to handle cases related to unauthorised collection of public deposits," said an officer.

Statistics revealed that state police had registered cases against 266 Ponzi firms between 2010 and 2018. As many as 622 cases were registered during the period and the police had arrested 850 accused. Chargesheets were submitted in 412 cases during the period.

Additional director general of police (crime branch) Santosh Kumar Upadhyay said that the workshop was conducted to train investigating officials in the latest skills. "This kind of investigation needs special skills as they have to seize banking records and documents of registrar of companies. The EOW is the nodal agency for investigation into such frauds. But we also want to train the district police to deal with similar cases," said Upadhyay.