Bhubaneswar: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is back in action mode in the Artha Tatwa chit fund scam case. It has raided 3 locations in Bhubaneswar and a total of 8 locations in the state.
ED officials conducted raids on Thursday in various parts of the state including Bhubaneswar, Brahampur, Chhatrapur etc. Among the raided places in Bhubaneswar was a daily Odia newspaper.
An investigation was conducted in Bhubaneswar Kharvela Nagar police station in the case of Artha Tatwa chit fund fraud. While CBI, ED and other agencies were investigating the incident, the prime accused Pradeep Sethi along with the petitioner and other accused were arrested.
While Mr. Padhi was in jail since May 30, 2013, his bail application was rejected on September 24, 2021. Similarly, in 2022, Shrikrishna Padhi, one of the accused in the scam and the director of the company, was also granted bail by the Orissa High Court.
The big thing is that when the general elections are ahead, there has been a lot of talk in various quarters about such a move by the ED. In 2009, the financial institution opened many branches in various districts of Odisha and took a lot of money from the people.
The police registered a case and arrested the head of the company, Pradeep Sethi. Later, the CBI took charge of the investigation in this case and arrested the other accused. Later, based on the charge sheet of the CBI, the ED registered a case of money laundering and the investigation is continuing.
Even though the ED had attached more than 100 crores, then on April 6, 2017, the main accused Pradeep was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment by the CBI court in Bhubaneswar. While he is currently in jail, it has been reported that the ED tracing his links.
