Bhubaneswar, Mar 12 (IANS): The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Crime Branch has arrested two directors of a fake stock market advisory company for duping 400 investors to the tune of Rs 5 crore, police said on Saturday.

The accused are identified as Arpan Patel and Adyajyoti Nayak, both directors of IAAVIC Pvt. Ltd. The duo cheated the people claiming their firm is a stock market advisory company.

However, in reality, the company is neither a share broker/sub-broker in any stock exchange in India nor authorised by stock market regulating agencies like SEBI to carry out any such business, the EOW officials said.

The duo were arrested on March 10 from Mumbai and are being brought to Bhubaneswar after producing them before the additional chief metropolitan magistrate, Bandra, Mumbai.

They were arrested against a case registered on the basis of a complaint filed by one Swadhin Kumar Sahoo of Jajpur district of Odisha.

During the year 2020-2021, the above two accused persons launched their website awww.iaavic.com' and made wide propaganda through colourful brochures as well as through attractive videos circulated through YouTube, to attract the gullible depositors to invest in their company under the false assurance to return hefty interest, the EOW said.

During the investigation, the Police also found that the company represented through its accused directors had collected more than Rs 5 crore from 400 investors of Odisha alone and duped them subsequently by not returning money to them.

The police also suspect that both the accused directors have committed similar frauds and duped a large number of investors in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra (Mumbai), Gujarat, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh.

The EOW said that victim investors of other States can contact the investigating officer of this case on mobile No 9437736412.