CBI arrests absconding Pailan CMD in `574 cr Ponzi scheme
NEW DELHI: The CBI has arrested absconding Apurba Saha, the Chief Managing Director of the Pailan Group, in connection with the Rs 574 crore Ponzi scheme the group company is accused of running, officials here said on Tuesday.
The Central Bureau of Investigation had registered a case against the group of companies, known for running several schools and educational institutes across the country, in 2017 after the Supreme Court of India had transferred a bunch of chit fund cases to the central agency in May 2014.
Saha was arrested from Kolkata in connection with the case after having disappeared last year when CBI officials had started raiding his premises in the city's posh Ballygunge area. The agency had arrested Bipin Kumar Singh, another director in the group in August this year.
Sources in the know here have said that the Pailan chit fund case has links to popular celebrity-turned-politician Rituparna Sengupta, who is also being probed by the CBI and ED in the Rose Valley chit fund case over an alleged receipt of Rs 7.5 crore from the chit fund
company. They added that a sports journalist of a popular Bengali daily might also come under the scanner of investigative agencies.
Saha was arrested by the economic offences wing of the agency, with sources citing his non-cooperation with the probe as the reason for his arrest. Officials here said that he had fled after collecting money from the public fraudulently and later misapproriated the funds.
The Pailan chief was arrested after the agency recently came into the spotlight for pursuing leads pertaining to Rajeev Kumar and other state politicians, while looking the other way on investigative avenues linked to the promoters of the chit fund companies.