ED raids in Rs 120 cr fraud case

Bhubaneswar: The Directorate of Enforcement (ED), Bhubaneswar, launched searches at ten places in Odisha and West Bengal in connection with a money laundering case involving Kalpana Financial Services Private Limited and its director Amit Mandal.

The central agency, in an official statement, said the case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, was initiated on the basis of an FIR registered by the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police.

The case has been registered by the EOW in connection with an investment fraud operated principally under the name “Kalpana Financial Services” wherein members of the public were induced to invest money on representations that the funds would be deployed in share-market/trading activities and would yield fixed monthly returns ranging from approximately 3.5 per cent to 7 per cent.

Through the scheme, around Rs 120 crore were collected from the public. The accused Mandal, a resident of South Boilapara under Bishnupur police station area in Bankura district of West Bengal, was arrested by the EOW in December 2025 following a complaint by a resident of Khordha district.

The EOW sleuths found during the course of investigation that the accused Amit Mandal, during the period from 2020 to 2024, had collected more than Rs 120 crore by inducing around 500 depositors from Odisha and 100 depositors from West Bengal.

He had to return the invested amount of more than Rs 40 crore. He used to pay the monthly returns from the successive deposits of the depositors. During 2023, the accused failed to pay the returns and falsely assured the depositors that their money would be reinvested in his newly formed company, Kalpamit Consultancy Private Limited. But later, he absconded, throwing the depositors into despair.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The Hans India