The police arrested a multi-crore chit fund scamster Kamal Kumar Singh in Kolkata on Sunday. Kamal (35) was absconding for the last two years and was brought to the steel city on Monday morning after his arrest.
According to sources, the accused was arrested by a special team of police officers from East Singhbhum at the Dum Dum Airport in Kolkata, after he came out from a plane from Guwahati on Sunday forenoon. He was about to head for Noida but was nabbed by a police team, who were waiting at the airport. The accused was brought to Jamshedpur by car on Monday morning and was forwarded to Ghatshila sub-jail in the afternoon.
Revealing about the breakthrough in the chit fund scam, senior SP of East Singhbhum Amol V Homkar said that the accused was suspected to have been involved in the chit fund scam which may run into over 1,000 crore.
“It is a big achievement for the police. We are trying to get more details. As per the information gathered the accused who was a fourth grade employee of the Uranium Corporation of India limited (UCIl) used to run the chit fund racket in the name of Raj.Com from Jadugoda since 2008. Most of his clients, whose number is yet to be ascertained, were employees of UCIl. The employees deposited money worth crores of rupees with the chit fund company by reposing faith on Singh,” said Homkar.
Speaking about the modus operandi, the senior police officer said that the accused duped the investors by gaining their confidence on the chit fund firm- Raj.Com.
“As per the details received against a deposit of Rs 1 lakh, the investors were getting Rs 5,000 as monthly dividend. Since 2008, when he launched the chit fund company till 2012, he maintained his promise and kept on paying the dividend to the investors regularly. Due to regular payment of dividends he gained the confidence of the investors over the time. People started depositing money with the chit fund company by even selling their land and other properties.
From January, 2013 he stopped paying dividends to a section of investors and in the next few months people started suspecting him. Finally, an investor Ravindra Nath Singh, a resident of Jadugora lodged an FIR against Singh on September 25, 2013. Then only police came to know about the scam,” said Homkar. By the time police could take action, Singh absconded from Jadugora.
The police officer informed that seven investors including Ravindra Nath Singh had lodged cases against Singh and his six associates at Jadugoda and Parsudih police stations.
During the course of investigation, the police established that Singh cheated hundreds of investors in Jadugoda and Parsudih, located on the outskirts of steel city.
Earlier, the police had also seized a mall and a hotel owned by Singh at Jadugora. Investigation revealed that the accused also owns properties in Noida, where he had spent most of his time after absconding from Jadugoda. A senior official of district police said that Singh had influence in police, administration and a section of media.
Singh, who originally hails from Bihar was born and brought up at Jadugoda. One of his younger brother , Deepak Kumar is also wanted in the case , but he is absconding. The senior SP said that they have prayed to the local court in Ghatshila for five-day remand to interrogate the scamster.