Bhubaneswar: In yet another incident revealing the involvement of students in criminal activities in the state, the Special Crime Unit of Commissionerate Police Tuesday blew the lid off a Rs 1.11-crore investment fraud and arrested a final-year BBM student in connection with the case.
According to a senior police officer, the accused was identified as Atmajyoti Nayak, 21, a resident of Palashpalli area under Airport police station here. “Atmajyoti was nabbed from his home Tuesday,” the officer added. Addressing the media here, assistant commissioner of police (ACP) Sarat Kumar Sahu said accused Atmajyoti introduced himself as the representative of a company named ‘Imperial Investors’, which later turned out to be a fraud entity.
In order to dupe the investors, he created a bogus website, where he claimed to provide investors a monthly return of 10-15 per cent on the principal amount. He advertised the fake scheme in a City-based social media page to attract customers, Sahu stated. He also said, “The victims met Atmajyoti during his college function in 2022 when the later promised a guaranteed return on the principal amount at the end of each month. So far, he has made a payment of Rs 12 lakh to the investors through cheques.” However, when the complainants asked him for return on the rest of the amount, Atmajyoti went incommunicado.
According to sources, Atamjyoti has duped at least nine investors through the fake website. As per police interrogations, Atmajyoti confessed that he was investing the money in trading for high returns. Though, he claimed, there was some profits in the initial stage, the markets crashed later and did not yield good returns. The Commissionerate Police booked Atmajyoti under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and produced him before a local court for remand.