Odisha: CBI arrests two former executives of Green Ray chit fund company

BHUBANESWAR: The CBI, probing the Rs 1,000 crore chit fund scam by the Green Ray International Limited (GRIL), arrested two former executives of the company from Balasore on Thursday. The accused were identified as Sayamat and Mir Jamiruddin.
Sources said the accused are cousins of GRIL’s MD, Mir Sahiruddin, who was arrested in February 2017. Sayamat and Jamiruddin had remained at large since then.
“We had been tracking their movements. Though they were named in the charge sheet filed on September 15, they had not appeared in court. A non-bailable warrant (NBW) was issued against the duo. They were arrested from their home in the Jaleswar area,” a CBI officer said.
The GRIL is accused of duping investors in different states of more than Rs 1,000 crore and diverting huge amounts of money to Dubai and Nigeria through hawala brokers. Sahiruddin, along with some of his associates, had floated the GRIL in Balasore in 2012 and started collecting deposits from people by luring them with the promise of high returns. His fortune smiled and he forayed into several other trades and opened branches across the country. The CBI said GRIL had tied up with a company in Nigeria where it had acquired an iron ore mine on lease in April 2013. The probe agency said Sahiruddin’s business was spread to Dubai as well. He had 47 branches in Odisha.
The company had promised investors a monthly dividend of Rs 2,000 against a fixed deposit of Rs 1 lakh.
Sources said altogether 12 cases were registered against the company in different districts in the state between 2012 and 2014. The economic offences wing (EOW) of the state Crime Branch was initially probing the fraud before the CBI took over the investigation in May 2014.
The EOW had confiscated around 20.68 acre of land belonging to the company. While its deposits amounting to Rs 57 lakh in 46 accounts were frozen, the Crime Branch had seized Rs 9.55 lakh in cash, 246 grams of gold coins worth Rs 4.16 lakh and 9.5kg silver coins worth Rs 6.67 lakh.