BHUBANESWAR: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Crime Branch (CB) has arrested an Odia couple from Greater Noida for allegedly cheating depositors of a whopping Rs 20 crore on the promise of investing their money in share trading.
EOW officers apprehended Chandra Sekhar Sahoo of Anandapur in Keonjhar district and his wife Jharana Sahoo, and brought them to Odisha. The couple was produced before a court in Cuttack on the day.
The agency registered a case on December 8 after receiving a complaint from one of the duped investors Jayant Mishra, who is an employee of Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) in Talcher.
Investigation revealed Chandra Sekhar was earlier working as a chartered accountant with MCL in Talcher. He later resigned from the job and opened his company M/s Evoreach Ventures Private Limited in 2021. He was the managing director and his wife Jharana was one of the directors of the firm.
Subsequently, Chandra Sekhar converted the company from private limited to public limited and floated different unregulated money deposit schemes promising high returns to the investors. He was mostly inducing the investors on the promise of doubling their invested amount in 30 months by paying equal returns every month, said the EOW.
Hundreds of depositors not only from Odisha but also from other places like Bengaluru, Chennai and New Delhi invested huge amounts in various dubious schemes floated by Evoreach Ventures from 2022 to 2024. However, after allegedly collecting ` 20 crore from the depositors, both had fled.