Bhubaneswar: The officials of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday conducted raids at 25 places in Odisha including the residence of ruling BJD’s Balasore MP Rabindra Jena and Choudwar-Cuttack MLA Prabhat Biswal in connection with multi crore Seashore chit fund scam.
CBI sources said, houses of several persons, including chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s office staffer Saroj Sahu were raided by the investigating agency in connection with the ponzi scam. Both of them were already quizzed by CBI in November 2014.
Sahu is said to be a trusted person of Patnaik and allegedly connived with Seashore Group to cheat poor investors.
Sources said the houses and offices of the key persons of the Seashore Group are raided. Information reaching here said, the officials are conducting raid at the residence of one of Biswal’s relative in Cuttack. Apart from this, the residence of Choudwar municipality councillor was raided in Choudwar and the house of Kamalakanta Das, a hotel owner was also searched in the Old Town area of the capital city.
The probe agency strongly suspects their involvement in the multi-hundreds crore Seashore scam. Further details will unfold. The Group is alleged to have duped people of about one thousand five hundred crore rupees.
This will be the third time, Jena will be quizzed by the probing agency. Last month, CBI had grilled Jena for around seven hours in connection with the multi-crore Seashore chit fund scam.
Two days back the central agency had served notice to Jena asking him to appear before it on 12 January in connection with the chit fund scam. This will be for the third time that Jena will appear before the central agency. The CBI had grilled Jena for nearly seven hours over his links with the Seashore Group on December 10, 2016.
Reacting on the development, Biswal said, "The officers had enquired about some land deals with Seashore Group while interrogating my wife. This time they wanted more information on this and we are co-operating with the officials".