CBI conducts raids across Samruddha Jeevan's offices in Maharashtra, Odisha

Admin   |   30 December, 2015   |   636   |   3980

Samruddha Jeevan was one of the chit fund firms that had allegedly collected money from the common investors without having any valid legal authority to do so

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday conducted searches at as many as 58 places linked to the Pune-headquartered Samruddha Jeevan Group of companies. The searches were conducted in 40 locations in Pune and their offices in Nashik, Aurangabad, Solapur and some places in Odisha in connection with an ongoing investigation in chit fund cases registered in Odisha. The searches came a day after the CMD of Samruddha Jeevan, Mahesh Motewar, was arrested by the Osmanabad district police from Pune in another cheating case.

A CBI officer said, Samruddha Jeevan was one of the chit fund companies that had allegedly collected money from the common investors without having any valid legal authority to do so. Searches were being conducted in the office premises of Samrudhha Jeevan, its group companies and residential premises of the company directors. The group’s Marathi and Hindi TV channels’ offices were also searched. More than 300 officers and personnel of the CBI were involved in searches that were carried out according to the directives of the Supreme Court.

Samruddha Jeevan Foods, had been barred by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) from raising money from investors. The company has been collecting money from small investors from across rural Maharashtra and nearby states for investing in cattle and goat farms. This Sebi said was being done without proper approvals. An offense was registered against Motewar and three other company directors at the Deccan Gymkhana Police Station in Pune. Motewar was granted anticipatory bail in the case. Samruddha Jeevan used a multi-level-marketing operations with close to a lakh ‘independent marketing executives’ used to source funds from investors promising them doubling to quadrupling of their money through ‘buy and sell cattle and goats, milk processing and allied agriculture activities’.

BJP MP Kirit Somaiya in a statement issued on Monday said Samruddha Jeevan was involved in a Rs 2,900 crore scam and it had cheated around 1,000,000 small investors and farmers. Somaiya alleged that this money was diverted into media.