Berhampur, Jul 14: A 43-year-old realtor was arrested in Brahmapur on Sunday for allegedly defrauding several individuals of Rs 5 crore under the guise of providing residential plots.
The accused has been identified as Chetan Kumar Choudhury of Gosaninuagaon.
The incident came to light after A. Santosh Kumar Patra from the Lanjipalli area filed a written complaint at the Gosaninuagaon police station, stating that he had been cheated.
According to the complaint, Santosh worked as an accountant and marketing agent at Sadhwi Constructions and Logistics, in Gosaninuagaon. He claimed that the company’s owner, Chetan Kumar Choudhury, along with other office staff, promoted a scheme offering residential plots in exchange for monthly monetary investments. Many individuals were convinced by this scheme and invested money accordingly. The investors were reportedly sending monthly installments directly to Santosh and other employees.
However, all the collected money was allegedly handed over to the company's owner, Chetan Kumar Choudhury.
The scheme, which started in August 2019, was scheduled to mature by September 2021. But as the maturity period approached, Santosh and the other staff members were instructed to stop collecting further payments. When investors started asking for their plots, they were threatened by Chetan Kumar Choudhury, according to the allegations.
Many of the investors came forward with receipts for the payments they had made and demanded possession of their promised plots. Chetan, however, claimed that the receipts were fake. Moreover, all the official accounting records were reportedly kept under Chetan’s control.
Following Santosh’s complaint, police launched an investigation. It was eventually revealed that Chetan Kumar Choudhury had fraudulently collected more than Rs 5 crore from around 200 customers under the guise of a monthly investment scheme for residential plots.
He was arrested on Sunday in connection with the case. FIRs have been lodged against him at both Gosaninuagaon and Badabazar police stations, according to information provided by the Superintendent of Police (SP) of Berhampur.
