Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the State Crime Branch on Sunday arrested the Director of the Ashirbad Multipurpose Cooperative Ltd, Subash Srichandran here on the charge of duping the investors of over Rs 10 crore.
He was later forwarded to the court. Sources in the EOW said Srichandan is a lecturer in a private college at Balugan in Khurda district.
Prior to his arrest, EOW had arrested two directors of the company.
Sources in the Crime Branch said the company had collected money from the people through various schemes with a promise to return double the amount of their investment. But instead of paying back its investors, the company closed down its branches in the state in 2014.
In the course of its investigation, the EOW arrested the chief executive officer (CEO) of the company Swetang Patnaik from Keonjhar and later arrested another director of the company on the basis of information provided by him.
Patnaik was also the managing director of Ashirbad Multipurpose Cooperative Ltd’s sister concerns like Ashirbad Multi Trade Pvt Ltd, Ashirbad Multitech and Infracon Ltd, Ashirbad Goat Rearing India Ltd and Ashirbad Future Care.
The company had its corporate office in Paika Nagar near Delta Square in Bhubaneswar.
Initially, a case was registered against Patnaik in 2015 following an FIR filed by Deepak Kumar Baral of Kantapada in the Adaspur area at the Olatpur police station in Cuttack district. Later, the matter came to the Orissa High Court, which directed the EOW to probe the case.