Bhubaneswar: More than a fortnight after CNN-IBN exposed that Odisha-based Seashore Group had duped over 1.5 lakh investors of Rs 1700 crore, the state's crime branch on Saturday sealed the headquarters of the group in Bhubaneshwar. The company had reportedly offered investors 24 per cent interest per annum.
While the chairman of Seashore Group Prashant Das has yet not been arrested, the police had earlier detained over a hundred staff members and owners of 40 financial institutions which are now under the scanner.
When he retired at 60 in 2012, school teacher Basudev Mohapatra invested most of his retirement benefits of Rs 7 lakh with the Seashore Group that promised him a whopping 24 per cent interest annually for six years before returning his money. After a few months the interest payments stopped. The company even refused to return the invested amount. Basudev realised he had been duped.
"The company and its agent convinced us that if you keep your money in banks you will get only eight per cent interest, but if you deposit in Seashore you will get 24 per cent. Since the company was running for past several years in our area, we thought the government must have given it all due permission to operate," Mohapatra had told CNN-IBN.
"The crime branch authorities are hand in glove with Seashore and have deliberately delayed the case in legal tangle and are not taking action against Prasant Das. We want that that Seashore Chairman Prasant Das should be arrested immediately," Sanjay Kumar Mahapatra, another duped investor had alleged.
Three years ago, a firm named Fine Indisales had also swindled over 2 lakh investors of Rs 576 crores. Forty such fraudulent companies have been identified in Odisha and the amount lost by investors has been estimated to be Rs 20,000 crores.
"The dilemma that we face during investigation is that the investors who have been duped are not very forthcoming to lodge complaints. They are under the false impression that at some point of time they will get their money and if police take action then their money would be lost. What we need is to take more proactive measures," BK Sharma, Add DG, Crime Branch, had said earlier.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) lists 17 non-banking financial companies registered in Odisha and none are permitted to raise deposits from investors. But fraudulent companies attract depositors posing as mutual fund firms and even as real estate businesses. With regulatory bodies like the RBI, SEBI, the state finance department and the state police failing to act together, the fraudsters get away with hundreds of crores.
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