This story is from April 28, 2016

CBI takes custody of chit fund fraudster from Angul cops

The CBI on Wednesday took custody of Mahesh Kisan Motewar, CMD of Samruddha Jeevan Foods India Limited, from Angul police.
CBI takes custody of chit fund fraudster from Angul cops
Bhubaneswar: The CBI on Wednesday took custody of Mahesh Kisan Motewar, CMD of Samruddha Jeevan Foods India Limited, from Angul police. He allegedly operated a chit fund company and cheated investors of more than Rs 1,500 crore in the country. In Odisha, the company is accused of duping investors of nearly Rs 400 crore.
Motewar was arrested by Pune police on December 28, 2015.
Angul police had in January taken his custody from the Pune police in a case registered against him in 2013.
"We formally arrested him and produced him the special CBI court here for his links in the fraud in Odisha. The court allowed us to take him on five-day remand for further questioning," said a CBI officer.
The CBI sources said the company had been collecting money from small investors, mostly from rural and semi-urban areas, promising high returns on cattle and goat farming. In January 2013, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had barred the company, headquartered in Shivajinagar in Pune, from raising money from investors. The Sebi also found the company floated several attractive schemes without requisite permissions from different government agencies.
In Odisha, the company had set up 37 offices and collected deposits from people through three schemes. The firm forayed into education, real estate, media, hospitality, food and IT sectors. "Motewar had been running 18 companies under the Samruddha Jeevan banner. His business empire runs into several thousands of crores of rupees," the CBI officer said.
Angul police had arrested five employees of the company in 2013 and submitted chargesheets in the case on January 31, 2014. On July 23, 2015, the economic offence wing of the Crime Branch raided the company's office at Nayapalli here after finding it operating despite much hue and cry over chit fund scams.
On December 29 last year, the CBI had raided 58 premises of Samrudhha Jeevan across the country as part of the mega chit fund scam. The first case against the company's employees was registered in July 2011 at Bhanjanagar police station in Ganjam.
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About the Author
Debabrata Mohapatra

Debabrata Mohapatra is a senior correspondent at The Times of India, Bhubaneswar. He holds a PG diploma in Journalism from Chennai and covers crime and civic issues. Debabrata spends his leisure reading and watching cricket on TV.

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