CBI charge sheets journalist in Ponzi scam

The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed a supplementary charge sheet against a journalist for allegedly receiving Rs 4 crore from a ponzi company, officials said Thursday.

In its charge sheet filed in a special court in Bhubaneswar, the agency has claimed that journalist Suman Chattopadhyay, who was a director of Disha Productions and Media Private Limited (DPMPL), had received the amount from the I-Core Group.

The CBI said Chattopadhyay was already chargesheeted by the agency in August 2017 for Rs 2,421 crore fraud.

It has alleged Chattopadhyay conspired with the directors of I-Core and received money from the ponzi company, which he used to liquidate his liabilities with a nationalised bank.

The accused was running a daily Bengali newspaper, where he promoted collection of illegal deposits by I-Core by publishing advertisements of the said group, resulting in "phenomenal" rise in collection of deposits by the group from the investors of West Bengal, Odisha and Assam, the agency alleged.