Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha arrested a man from Hyderabad for allegedly duping over 200 investors to the tune of Rs five crore by promising to double their deposits in ten months.
The accused, identified as Dhanajaya Sahoo Sharshada village in Bhandaripokhari area of Bhadrak district, was arrested from Khairatabad in Hyderabad on February 21, EOW said in a statement on Monday.
He has been booked under sections 420/467/468/471/120-B IPC r.w Sec.21 (1)/ 21 (3)/ 23 of Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Act.
After being arrested, the accused was produced before the court of 1st Addl. Chief Judicial Magistrate, Nampally, Hyderabad and brought on transit remand to Bhubaneswar. He is going to be produced before the designated Court under OPID Act, Cuttack.
The case was registered on the written report of one Govinda Chandra Sahoo of Bichitrapur village in Jajpur district against Sahoo and others for cheating him like many others of crores of rupees by illegally taking the deposits under the promise of doubling the deposited amount through his company “Mutual Alliance Global Pvt. Ltd.” within 10 months.
Investigation revealed that from 2011 to 2021, the arrested accused had formed five companies namely Goodland Happy Home Infra Ltd., Goodland Construction Pvt. Ltd., PURIFIO Technology Pvt. Ltd., Coinex Technology Pvt. Ltd. and Mutual Alliance Global Pvt. Ltd. and was running the same as MD. With formation of the companies, he has been inducing the investors to deposit through his companies for getting exorbitant profit from further investment of the deposited amount in real estate marketing, block chain in real estate market, e-commerce and on online gaming platform.
During 2020, he formed his latest company “Mutual Alliance Global Pvt. Ltd., the office of which was at Chintamaniswar Temple, Budheswari Area, Bhubaneswar. He being the MD and in connivance with his associates, induced the general public by holding meetings in different reputed hotels in Bhubaneswar to deposit with his company for getting high returns that to double of the invested amount in 10 months. He was soliciting deposits from the investors giving the impression that the amount will be ultimately invested in real estate market, e-commerce and online gaming, and promising to double the deposited amount as fixed share profit in 10 equal monthly calendar months, and investors require to surrender the PDCs as soon as the investors received the principal amount of deposit. In order to win the confidence of the investors, the accused had been issuing PDCs equivalent to the promised amount apart from executing agreement with the investors pertaining to the doubling of deposited amount by harnessing the power of block chain in real estate market, e-commerce and online gaming platform.
As found from investigation made so far, Sahoo in his capacity as MD of Multual Alliance Global Pvt. Ltd. during the year 2020 and 2021 has taken unregulated deposits of Rs 5 crore from around 200 investors mainly from Cuttack, Khurda, Jajpur, Bhadrak, Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj districts of Odisha.
Initially, although he paid very meagre return at best for one or two months, later stopped making any payment, defaulted to return the depositors’ money and the promised returns and absconded by closing down the office of the company. In order to evade the legal action and arrest, he was concealing himself in different outside States. Many incriminating materials like laptop, mobile phone, pen drive, bank accounts, ATM cards, passport etc. have been collected/seized from the possession of the accused. The arrested accused had earlier visited the foreign countries like Dubai, Thailand and Germany. The investigation of the case is going on.
