Owner of Odia daily, Banki MLA aide in CBI net

Bhubaneswar: In the most significant development since the arrest of Artha Tatwa group CMD Pradeep Sethy, the CBI on Friday rounded up the proprietor of a vernacular newspaper and a close associate of a BJD MLA for their alleged role in the multi-crore chit fund scam.
“Media entrepreneur Bikash Swain and Banki BJD MLA Pravat Tripathy’s associate Ranjan Das were arrested on charges of conspiracy and misappropriation of money in the AT Group, which subsequently went bust,” a CBI officer told TOI.
With this, the central investigating agency has arrested four persons in the over Rs 500-crore scam, while police had arrested Sethy and six others last year. Last month, CBI arrested the company’s director Sambit Khuntia and founder director Jyotiprakash Joyprakash.
Though Swain did not hold any post in the AT Group, he took a loan of Rs 4 crore from the company. Sethy, at present in CBI custody, earlier told the investigating officers that Swain had availed “unscrupulous” financial benefits and loan from him and did not return the money. CBI has been interrogating Swain for the past three days. The sleuths on Friday also raided his office at Kharavela Nagar. Employees of the newspaper did not want to react on the development.
On August 19, CBI raided the house of Das in Bhubaneswar and interrogated him. Das, a known supporter of the Banki MLA, was a former chief adviser of AT Group. He floated his own money circulation company under the aegis of Swastik India in 2012. On August 16, Tripathy’s house in Banki was raided, exposing the alleged political nexus in the AT Group scam. Tripathy then admitted he knew Das, but denied his involvement in the fraud.
CBI said they were collecting evidence against some political leaders, who, Sethi said, had conspired against him after taking money.