Based in Bhubaneswar, BIT is affiliated to the Biju Patnaik University of Technology and accredited to All India Council of Technical Education.
ED sources said that Seashore Group, which ran the chit fund scheme in question, had invested Rs 9 crore in the institute and company MD Prashant Dash even became chairman of the trust running the institute.
The investment had been first unearthed by CBI which had got evidence of the investment during raids on the institute and residence of Dash on September 25.
ED's zonal office in Kolkata issued the attachment orders under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) as it attached Rs 3.25 crore in cash deposits apart from land plots in Bhubaneswar, Sambalpur and other locations. Value of the total attachment was put at Rs 84 crore. Sources said the market value may be much higher.
This is the second attachment by the agency in this case. It had earlier frozen Rs 158 crore worth of assets of the firm in December last which included 200kgs of silver coins, 13 plush flats in various parts of the state, vast tracts of land in Angul, Bhadrak, Mayurbhanj and other places, a corporate office valued at Rs 30 crore in Bhubaneswar, two factories in Mayurbhanj, 1.4kgs of gold coins and other immovable assets in the state.
The case pertains to the alleged duping of investors under a chit fund scheme floated by the company. Its CMD Prashant Dash has already been arrested and grilled by the state Economic Offences Wing (EOW) and CBI, the two agencies probing the case.
Established in 2005-06, the Seashore conglomerate forayed into a host of fields including money circulation, real estate, media and gold trading.
The company is one of the prominent business groups among a clutch of 44 ponzi companies operating in the state which are under the scanner of CBI and ED after an order of the Supreme Court in this regard.
ED, according to records, has accused the firm of running a ponzi scheme and perpetrating an estimated Rs 800 crore fraud duping numerous investors belonging to the state and a few others from West Bengal and Assam.
The agency had registered an FIR in this case in 2013 after taking cognizance of complaints filed by Odisha police and its vigilance department.
The probe, under PMLA, found that the group has been running the chit fund scheme by running cooperative societies and taking money from investors as it promised them "unrealistic" returns on investments.
ED, official sources had said, found these cooperative societies floated by the group to have allegedly fudged KYC, accounting and registration norms in order to perpetrate the scam.
An attachment under PMLA laws is aimed at depriving the accused from the benefits of his or her ill-gotten wealth.
http://ift.tt/1qfcaRo chit fund scam,Enforcement Directorate,Bhubaneswar Institute of Technology
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