The Balasore branch head of Mid East Multi-State Credit Cooperative Ltd Ratikanta Tripathy has been taken on three-day remand by Town police for interrogation. Earlier, CMD of the company Debesh Kumar Nayak was on remand for three days.
Mid East has allegedly mobilised Rs 100 crore from at least six districts of the State. Town IIC Manas Deo said Tripathy, who was also the vice-president of the company, would be interrogated on unlawful financial activities in the district. “We hope to get more information regarding their modus operandi and details about their investment and nexus with others to run their business,” he said.
Sources said Mid East was receiving deposits under three schemes __ Monthly Income Scheme (MIS), Recurring Deposit (RD) and Fixed Deposit (FD). The depositors were promised a monthly dividend of 2.5 per cent. A person depositing Rs 1 lakh was to get Rs 2,500 per month.
The company had, however, stopped paying the monthly dividend after five/six months and thereafter the cheques provided by them bounced. “The company has no legal authorisation to run it as a banking or non-banking financial institution. Neither has it the permission of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) nor the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI),” he said.
During interrogation of Nayak, police came to know that the company had 10 branches in Odisha and two in West Bengal, through which over Rs 100 crore was mobilised. It had its branches in Balasore, Mayurbhanj, Bhadrak, Kendrapara, Nayagarh and Khurda.
While the company had closed down its Balasore office in December last year, a case was registered with the Town police station following a complaint by a depositor Radhanath Das, who alleged that a cheque of Rs 2.26 lakh given by the company had bounced.
Though the company authorities claimed that they had purchased land with the depositors’ money, the police were yet to locate the land plots. “The company had no sustainable business network through which it could repay the depositors. We are inquiring where it had invested the money,” the police officer added.