Chit fund owner held from Ballygunge

Kolkata: A chit fund owner was arrested by officials of the of Directorate of Economic Offences (DEO) on Thursday night from Ballygunge area.

The accused person, identified as Shanti Surana, was produced at the Alipore court on Friday and has been remanded to judicial custody for three days.

According to sources, Surana was a real estate businessman by profession who allegedly collected around Rs 2,000 crore from several people between 2007 and 2016 by promising high returns.

Surana allegedly targeted wealthy and elderly people so that he could get a huge amount of money. He used to convince people to invest in real estate by showing several projects.

Surana had made false promises to those who invested in his projects that they would get a return of almost double of the principal amount.

After collecting a huge amount of money by showing one project, Surana used to obtain loan by giving the project or the immovable assets to banks and financial institutions on mortgage. But the investors were unaware of his malpractices. After 2016, when several people did not get their money after the promised period was over, they found that Surana had duped them. During 2019, around 20 complaints were registered in multiple police stations. Later the investigation of those cases were taken over by the DEO. On Thursday night, Surana was arrested from his residence in the Queens Park area in Ballygunge.

Nitin Dani, an investor, said: "I met him sometime around 2008. He convinced me so well that I had given him crores of rupees expecting a huge return. He also used to convince people to bring more investment from the investors' friends as well as a chain."