The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Crime Branch on Friday arrested the managing director of a city-based real estate company for duping customers of Rs 5 crore.
The accused Himanshu Sekhar Nayak (43) is the MD of Shreya Infrastructure Services Limited, which had its office at Saheed Nagar. Nayak is a resident of Sunamba Street under the Aska police station in Ganjam district. A case had been registered against Nayak following a complaint lodged by one Debodutto Routray of Bhubaneswar regarding cheating and fraud.
Investigations revealed that the real estate firm had issued advertisements for selling of studio apartment at Puri in the name of “Shree Kshetra Kalinga Kutira” at a cost of Rs 9.50 lakh for each unit.
Being lured by the advertisements, the complainant and more than 100 customers had deposited a sum of Rs 5 crore between 2014 and 2015 for the project at Sipasarubali in Puri. The accused had executed agreements with the customers to hand over possession of respective flats within three years from the date of the agreement but he failed and allegedly embezzled the money.
When the depositors approached Nayak to get their money back, he went underground closing his office here. Further investigation of the case is underway and the accused was forwarded to the OPID Court in Cuttack.