Wife of Rose Valley group chief arrested

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday arrested Shubhra Kundu, a small-time Bengali actor and wife of Goutam Kundu, owner of chit fund major Rose Valley Group, for her alleged role in siphoning off depositors’ funds to the tune of several crores after her husband’s arrest by the ED nearly six years ago.

Ms Kundu, before her arrest, was detained by a CBI team from her residence in South Kolkata after she failed to give satisfactory answers to them during questioning. She had earlier skipped several summons to face questioning, a CBI official anonymously claimed while adding that the accused is also wanted by the ED in a case of money laundering. Ms Kundu was brought to the CBI office at the CGO Complex in Salt Lake. She will be produced at a court in Bhubaneswar on Saturday when the CBI is likely to pray for her remand.

According to CBI sources, Ms Kundu was instrumental in stashing the depositors’ fund quietly overseas through Hawala network after her husband was arrested by the ED in March of 2015 and has been in jail custody since. She is also one of those few contacts who regularly stayed in touch with Mr Kundu over phone in jail and worked on his directions to stash the funds, sources revealed.

Most of the illegal transactions were related to Adrija, a jewelry store chain Ms Kundu used to look after, and were done with the help of her friend and former ED assistant director: Manoj Kumar, the CBI found. Mr Kumar was spotted by the Kolkata Police with Ms Kundu at the Kolkata Airport and at a Delhi hotel. He was later suspended leading to his removal from deputation to the ED.