Bhubaneswar: A special court, set up under the Odisha Protection of Interests of Depositors (OPID) Act, in Cuttack Wednesday awarded 10-year rigorous imprisonment (RI) to the mastermind of a fraudulent investment scheme after holding him guilty of deceiving gullible investors to the tune of Rs 14 crore.
The convict, Pabitra Kumar Sahoo, was awarded the sentence under relevant Sections of Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, the OPID Act and IPC, Cuttack OPID Court Special Public Prosecutor Biswajit Mohapatra said.
The EOW had taken up the investigation of the case following the Orissa High Court’s intervention in 2018, while the fraud was perpetrated in 2015. According to the case records, M/s Vibgyor Allied Infrastructure Limited and its sister companies, having a registered office at Kolkata, opened a branch office at Suryanagar here.
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“The convict, representing himself as the Odisha head of the company, deceitfully induced the public to invest money in different schemes of the companies with the assurance of a higher return on the invested sum.
However, the company closed its office in 2013 and did not pay the maturity value,” Mohapatra said.
PNN
