CBI arrests newspaper owner, former AT group official in chit fund scam

Central agency planning to produce Bikash Kumar Swain, owner of Odia daily 'Suryaprava' in court

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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is probing unauthorised collection of public deposits under chit fund schemes, today arrested two persons -- owner of an Odia newspaper daily and a former executive of AT Group -- in connection with the scam after quizzing them for nearly three days.

The central agency is planning to produce Bikash Kumar Swain, owner of Odia daily "Suryaprava" and Ranjan Das, owner of another chit fund company Swastik India and an ex-employee of AT Group before court after sufficient evidence suggested their involvement in the business transaction of AT Group, said a source.

While Swain had regular business transaction with AT Group, Das was involved in the deposit collection process of the firm in its early days, the source added.

In past three days, CBI was trying to find out names of investors who were receiving monthly interests from AT Group against bonds issued them in spite of making any investment in the firm. It came to know about such fake investors when income tax officials revealed names of certain influential people within and outside of state government as beneficiary of the scheme. Based on the tip off from income tax official, CBI started to interrogate Swain and Das earlier this week.

Besides, during an interrogation by CBI officials last month, Das admitted that he had paid kickbacks to some influential people in the state government.

Since last week of July this year, the CBI has been raiding houses of different political leaders in connection with chit fund scam after arrested AT group chief Pradip Sethy revealed that several political leaders, bureaucrats and journalists had were beneficiary of his company. Following Sethy's admissions, the state crime branch had confiscated the property of the group, estimated at Rs 400 crore.

The central agency has already taken Sethy under its custody for the second time after a 10 day remand, to question him further about his association with political leaders and others who knew about his unauthorised collection of public money.

The CBI is investigating activities of 44 chit fund companies in the state after a Supreme Court order in May this year. In a separate development, the probe agency today received documents related to Seashore group from state police and has chalked out plans to conduct raids at 75 places across the country to find out financial transactions of the firm.

Earlier this week, a district sessions court had denied bail request of Seashore chief Prasant Das. He has been arrested since last year by the state crime branch police after depositors of southern Odisha accused him of cheating and forgery for his chit fund schemes.