Rose Valley ponzi case: ED arrests Kolkata-based man

The Enforcement Directorate has arrested a Kolkata-based businessman in connection with its money laundering probe into the Rose Valley ponzi scam case, officials said Monday.

Sudipto Roy Choudhary (44) was arrested by the agency from West Bengal capital Kolkata on Sunday under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), they said.

The officials said a Kolkata court on Monday sent Choudhary to judicial custody till November 12.

They said Choudhary, who ran a consultancy business, is a suspect in connection with a number of payments made in the chit fund scam case and payments worth crores made to him are under the ED's scanner.

His links with a number of people, including politicians, are under the scanner of the agency, the officials said.

They said the Enforcement Directorate (ED) is also scrutinising transactions of Choudhary, which are linked to about a dozen bank accounts and two dozen credit cards.

The agency arrested him after conducting fresh searches in the case at three premises over the last two days, the officials said.

The ED had registered an FIR against the Rose Valley, its chairman Gautam Kundu and others in 2014 under the PMLA. Kundu was arrested by the agency in Kolkata in 2015.

Multiple charge sheets have been filed in the courts in Kolkata and Bhubaneswar by the ED in this case. It has also attached assets worth about Rs 4,200 crore in this case till now.

The group had allegedly floated a total of 27 companies for running the alleged chit fund operations out of which only half-a-dozen were active.

The agency has alleged that the firm had floated the scheme promising inflated returns on investments between eight and 27 per cent to gullible investors in various states.

The company had allegedly pledged astronomical returns to depositors on land properties and assets and bookings done in the real estate sector.

The company has also been accused of making "cross investments" in its various sister firms to suppress its liabilities towards investors.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) had probed the company before the ED and the CBI registered cases against the group.

The ED has pegged the total volume of the alleged irregularities at Rs 15,000 crore, including interest and penalities.