Bhubaneswar, May 28 : The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Odisha Crime Branch on Tuesday arrested a person for duping several depositors in Odisha of over Rs 50 crore on the pretext of various Ponzi schemes, said an official here.

The accused was identified as Mohan Kumar Parida of Bhadrak district. Parida, an MBA graduate, is the Managing Director of M/s Way to Add India (P) Ltd. His wife is also the director of the sham private firm set up in 2020.

Parida was arrested on the basis of a complaint lodged by one Chitta Ranjan Palo of the Kalinga Nagar area in Bhubaneswar City. Palo alleged that Parida in connivance with other accused persons induced him to invest money to the tune of Rs 44.60 lakhs in various schemes of their company promising high interest, bonus, and commission. The accused persons reportedly had only given Rs 12,600 to Palo initially against his investment of Rs 44.60 lakhs.

'EOW found that Parida was actually running a Ponzi scheme in a pyramidic binary structure. The accused through his company floated different schemes like the autopool package and boosting package etc. From 2020 to 2023, he induced the gullible people to invest in the two schemes to get hefty returns i.e. 26 per cent per month consecutively for three months on the invested amount,' the EOW official added.

The official further stated that the company also used to offer a bonus of two per cent for investors for enrolling new members. A new member is required to join the schemes by depositing Rs 2500 which is non-refundable and after depositing the amount. The investor was later given one login ID under which he could further enrol three persons to get more commission/bonus.

The company to win the confidence of investors would initially give some money and Ayurvedic products of Rs 500 to them.

'Following the collection of more than Rs 50 crore from 2000 investors from Odisha, the accused Parida all of a sudden closed the schemes and fled away with the collected amount after closing the company office its registered office at Prachi Vihar in Rasulgarh area of Bhubaneswar city,' said EOW official.

The accused Parida was on Tuesday produced before the designated court under the OPID Act at Cuttack which sent him to 14-day judicial custody.

/IANS