Fugitive in ₹500-crore chit fund scam arrested in Odisha

Company had collected illegal deposits from Delhi, Jharkhand, Odisha and other places

In a major breakthrough, the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Odisha Police has arrested one Nikhilananda Pashupalak on charges of swindling money from gullible investors through a chit fund scam that runs into ₹500 crore.

Pasupalak, one of the key scamster of Success Online Service System (SOSS) Private Limited, has ironically acted in a Bhojpuri film in 2015.

The EOW started investigation into the case based on a complaint lodged by one Parsuram Behera against the office-bearers of SOSS, which was operating its regional office at Berhampur.

“During investigation, we came to know that SOSS had its registered office at in Ghaziabad and was operating its regional offices at different places of the country, including one at Berhampur,” Jai Narayan Pankaj, Deputy Inspector General of Police at Special Task Force, said.

Mr. Pankaj said the scamsters were promising gullible investors of high returns on investments on varied products such as insurance, online investment in share markets and chit fund.

After collecting money to the tune of more than ₹500 crore from different part of the country, including Odisha, and misappropriating them, office-bearers of the company disappeared in January, 2012. The company had collected illegal deposits from Delhi, Jharkhand, Odisha and other places.

“They kept changing their contact numbers and addresses. Pasupalak was absconding since then changing his places constantly. Other main accused, Raman Kumar Singh, managing director of SOSS, and Rakesh Kumar, secretary of the company, have been absconding,” Mr. Pankaj said. “Though the volume of fund collected from Odisha was probably to tune of ₹5 crore, the company had mobiliSed major chunk of its defrauded money from Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Delhi.”