Bhubaneswar, Oct 18 (IANS): The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha crime branch has arrested the managing director of a chit fund company from Kolkata for his alleged involvement in a cheating case of Rs 2.62 crore in Odisha, an official said here on Tuesday.

The accused was identified as Jaydeep Raha, MD of Jetex Ocenair Pvt. Ltd. The arrest was made in a case registered on the report of one Subash Chandra Pradhan of Bhanapur under Balanga PS of Puri district.

The EOW official said chit fund companies Ambitious Diversified Projects Management Ltd., Kolkata and OAK India Multistate Credit Co-operative Society represented through its directors and members illegally collected Rs 2.62 crore from 1968 investors of Odisha during the period 2010 and 2014, under the allurement of repaying with high rate of interest.

Subsequently, they closed their offices without paying the interest as well as the principal amount and fled away from the locality, the official said.

During investigation, the police found that out of the above collected amount, during the year 2011-12, a sum of about Rs 1.83 crore has been diverted to the account of Jetex Oceanair Pvt. Ltd., whose MD is the present accused Jaydeep Raha.

After being apprehended, he could not give any satisfactory reply in respect of receipt of such a huge amount, they said.

Three cases have also been registered against the chit fund company in West Bengal.

Earlier, MD Omkar Singh and other directors Kunal Tiwary, Arshad Hussain and Mringanka Sekhar Chakrabarty of the chit fund company have been arrested in the case.