The Enforcement Directorate began search operations at at least six locations across Kolkata on Wednesday morning in connection with an alleged chit fund fraud case, according to a report by Anandabazar.com. The searches include a businessman’s residence in Narkeldanga and addresses in areas including Netaji Nagar and Rabindra Sarobar.
The operation is based on allegations that money was collected through a chit fund and subsequently invested or diverted through another company. ED sources cited in the report said the searches were focused on the residences of people allegedly acting as links in the financial arrangement.
The agency has linked the investigation to the alleged misuse of funds deposited in a chit fund identified as APM. The reported allegation is that investors’ money was siphoned off or used for purposes other than those represented to depositors. The report did not provide the total amount involved, the number of depositors affected or details of any seizures made during Wednesday’s searches.
The searches were conducted at multiple addresses rather than a single premises, indicating that investigators were examining several people allegedly connected to the financial network. The locations named in the report include Narkeldanga, Netaji Nagar and Rabindra Sarobar, while three other addresses in Kolkata were also searched.
The operation comes a day after the ED arrested construction businessman Amit Gangopadhyay in a separate investigation linked to allegations of land grabbing and illegal construction. Gangopadhyay was summoned to the agency’s CGO Complex on Tuesday for questioning and was arrested after investigators alleged that he had not cooperated with the inquiry, the report said.
The separate land-related case concerns allegations that Gangopadhyay’s company occupied land in different parts of south Kolkata and developed residential projects on it. Police registered 20 first information reports against him in 2023 over allegations including land grabbing, cheating and the use of forged documents. The cases were registered in several police stations, including in South 24 Parganas, after which the ED began a separate investigation based on those complaints.
Gangopadhyay is also described in the report as being known to be close to former Trinamool Congress legislator Debashis Kumar. The report did not state that the Wednesday searches were part of the land-grabbing investigation or that any political figure was a target of the operation.
The ED’s searches were continuing at the time of the report. Further details about documents examined, property connected to the alleged transactions, amounts involved and any additional arrests were not immediately available in the supplied report.
