The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the State Crime Branch on Wednesday arrested and court-forwarded a director of a real estate firm on the charge of cheating investors of Ganjam district through his chit fund company.
The arrested person was laxman Panigrahi (57) of Choudhury Sahi of Ganja under the Ganjam police station in Ganjam district. He was a director of the Bhubaneswar-based land India Real Estate Private limited.
According to EOW sources, Panigrahi and other directors of the company had collected around Rs 8 crore from depositors of Polasara and other places of Ganjam district by promising hefty returns.
The EOW has slapped Sections 420, 467, 468, 471, 406, 120-B of IPC, section 4, 5, 6 of the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978 and Section 6 of the Odisha Protection of Interest of Depositors (in Financial Establishment) Act, 2011 on Panigrahi.
The company had opened its office at N3/430 of IRC Village, Bhubaneswar under the Nayapalli police station. Panigrahi along with his friends had floated various schemes such as Double Return Scheme (DRS), Monthly Income Scheme (MIS) and Recurring Deposit (RD) scheme with assurance of high rates of interest. The company closed down its office in July 2013 without paying the interest and maturity amounts to the investors, official sources said.
Earlier, two more directors of the company Braja Sundar Mishra and Nrusingha Nath Nanda had been arrested and forwarded to court in connection with the case.