CBI digs up bank a/c of Banki contractor in chit fund raid

The sleuths from Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today searched branch offices of two banks at Banki in Cuttack district to find out financial transaction of a contractor and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader with the chit fund companies who have duped several lakh investors, sources said.

The probe agency officials raided the Banki branches of Odisha Gramya Bank and Central Co-operative Bank, where BJD leader Subas Chandra Padhi had his accounts. The sleuths tried to find out whether any financial transaction was made from Padhi’s account with any of the suspicious chit fund companies, particularly AT Group.

Padhi is said to be a close confident of Banki BJD MLA, Pravat Tripathy, whose houses weere raided by CBI last week over allegations of his links with one or two chit fund companies. Due to close association with Tripathy, Padhi was questioned and his house was searched by the CBI. The raids conducted at banks today was based on information received during interrogation of Padhi earlier this week, sources said.

The CBI is trying to establish a link between business transaction of chit fund company AT Group with some leaders of the ruling party, after Pradip Sethy, head of AT Group, admitted that several political leaders, bureaucrats and journalists received kickbacks from him for smooth operation of his dubious finance schemes during interrogation by state police last year.

In a separate development, Ranjan Das, head of Swostik India chit fund company and co-founder of AT Group, has admitted that he had paid kickbacks to some influential people in the government. In another raid, Sahadev Khunta police in Balasore district today arrested two directors of Wisemen Resources India Limited in connection with chit fund scam. The two directors, Pravas Sharan Jena and Ramesh Chandra Patra, have been accused of duping investors of at least Rs 50 lakh by promising hefty returns, police said.