The economic offence wing (EOW) of the state police's crime branch division today arrested Deb Kumar Panda, the managing director of a Ponzy firm, Vista Management Services Ltd for duping investors of at least Rs 50 crore.
Panda was arrested from Bhubaneswar railway station as he was leaving for Vizag to catch a flight to Singapore from there, police said.
"The EOW also seized his passport, visa, air ticket, hotel booking receipt, and foreign currency. He was arrested on the basis of a complaint lodged by investors from western Odisha on April 23 this year," Rajendra Patnaik, superintendent of police (SP) of the wing said.
Vista Management Services started functioning in 2008-2009 by opening its corporate office in the capital city. It is alleged that Panda had collected around Rs 50 crore from public by floating various schemes promising heavy returns and had expanded his business in the western Odisha, particularly in Kalahandi and Bolangir districts.
Leader of Opposition and MLA from Bolangir, Narasimha Mishra said, the money trail investigation must be widened to find out involvement of political persons in the fraud.
"The crime branch must find out the involvement of political and influential persons from ruling party, who were part of the fraud," he said.
Earlier, Mishra had alleged that a minister in office from Kalahandi district and a former minister from Balangir, who is currently an MP, had colluded with Panda to dupe the investors.
Biju Janata Dal (BJD) Rajya Sabha MP Anang Udaya Singhdeo, who also hails from Bolangir, today praised the state police for its job and said, the opposition must not politicise the issue.
"I congratulate the state police crime branch for arresting the suspect. It will certainly pave the way for return of money to the investors. People should not indulge in petty politics over this issue," he said.
The police said, it will certainly verify all claims to find out involvement of other persons in the fraud.
"We are verifying the possible involvement of other person in the case," the EOW SP said.
Chit fund frauds and arrest of some ruling party politicians in connection with it have become major embarrassment for the BJD government, which is in its fourth term since 2000. It has suspended the politicians from the party after their arrests and tried to evade criticism by stating that these are individual affairs, the party has nothing to do with it. However, allegation of other ruling party leaders being involved in many small and medium category chit fund firms keep coming regularly.
The government has recently taken a decision to return money deposited by small investors on priority basis. A small investor has been defined as a person who had made less than Rs 10,000 deposit in a particular scheme of the chit fund company.
The Criminal Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is already investigating cases of 44 such firms in the state since August 2014.
