Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) teams on Wednesday raided seven Tripura offices of Kolkata-based Rose Valley Group, a chit fund company, and seized many official documents, police said.
"The CBI raids in the offices of Rose Valley Group in Tripura are a part of the agency's nation-wide search in the offices of the chit fund group," a top police officer told IANS.
The officer, who refused to be named, said the CBI is yet to arrest anybody but is scrutinising official documents of the company.
"The CBI officials interrogated around 12 employees of Rose Valley Group."
Congress legislator Gopal Roy raised the issue in the state assembly and asked Chief Minister Manik Sarkar to inform the house about the CBI raids.
"I do not know anything about the CBI raids," Sarkar, who also holds the home portfolio, told the house.
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The Enforcement Directorate, which is also probing the chit fund scam, had sealed over 2,000 bank accounts of the group across the country and interrogated its chairman Gautam Kundu in Kolkata.
The Tripura government in 2013 had referred 37 cases relating to chit fund companies to CBI, but the bureau has taken up only five cases.
Unauthorised chit fund companies and unauthorised Non Banking Financial Companies (NBFC) have mushroomed in the northeastern region in recent years. They lure depositors by promising exceptionally hefty rates of interest ranging from 25 percent to 30 percent. After collecting the money, they quietly shut down their operations and vanish.
The NBFCs or the chit fund companies, which are not recognised by the Reserve Bank of India, the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority or the Securities and Exchange Board of India, cannot conduct any monetary business or take deposits from people.