By Soumitra Nandi
Kolkata: The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in West Bengal on Thursday morning arrested the managing director of I Core E Services group in connection with running ponzi schemes without approval of Security Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Anukul Maity was apprehended from one of his residence at Golfgreen in south Kolkata and produced at Barrackpore Court, which remanded him to CID custody for 11 days.
“A complaint of cheating to the tune of Rs 6 lakhs was lodged by an investor against Maity at Belgharia police station on June 10 last year after which the CID took up the investigation. He was absconding since the complaint was lodged. He was picked up on the basis of source information,” said DIG CID, Dilip Kumar Adak.
Sources in the CID told that Anukul had floated 19 companies, out of which 15 were registered and he recruited more than 17000 agents to collect public money. According to an investigating officer, “He has collected money to the tune of around 3000 crores from the market under attractive schemes like debenture, recurring deposit, and collective investment scheme (CIS) promising exorbitant interest rates.”
“His companies had 12 directors including his wife Kanika Maity. His money marketing network extended to states like Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and even Tripura.” a senior CID official told the Journospy.
According to sources Maity who had started his career as a collection agent in Peerless group left his job in 2005. After two years in 2007 he float I Core group but never took the nod from SEBI which is mandatory in money marketing business. Fifteen of his companies were registered under ROC while four of them had no registration.
The CID took up the case and made the first arrest within 20 days, Siben Dutta one of the directors of the company is now out on bail. According to a CID officer, “The other directors are absconding. But since the big fish is in our dragnet we hope to come up with more arrests during the course of investigation.”
Maity is a native from Contai in East Midnapore and has a number of residences in Kolkata.