About 35 officials of 16 chit fund companies were arrested on Saturday in connection with the multi-crore scam that rocked the district in recent times. The officials including CMD of a company were produced in the court and remanded to judicial custody after their bail pleas were rejected.
The Crime Branch sleuths and police continued to crack down on chit fund organisations, multi-level marketing companies and multi-disciplined business enterprises in the region for the second consecutive day on Saturday.
Sources said several branches of 16 such companies in Balasore, Soro, Jaleswar, Baliapal and Bhogarai have been raided and 35 cases registered in last two days. The arrested officials include branch manager, regional manager, divisional manager and branch head.
Police have also seized Rs 60 lakh in cash, 100 gms gold and 5.5 kgs of silver besides 110 computers, registers, money receipts, deposit slips, investment forms of different ponzi schemes, brochures and other related documents from the offices of these non-banking financial companies (NBFCs).
A police official said Rs 3.5 crore deposited in three accounts of Green Ray, Rose Valley and Cosmo Rose companies has been frozen and further investigation is on. The data in the computers and the documents were being verified, he said adding that the company officials were arrested as various anomalies were found regarding the functioning of these companies.
While it was first ever big raid in the State, officials said it would be conducted in future to crack down on fraudulent activities of the NBFCs. “We would keep a tab on these companies to ensure that none can dupe people on the promise of doubling their investment within a short period,” they added.