Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing of the state Crime Branch has registered 28 cases related to various financial frauds during 2018. This was revealed in EOW’s annual report released Tuesday.
The 28 cases include five cases registered against chit fund firms, eight against real estate firms, nine against the fraudsters for cheating banks and six cases against individuals registered in the previous year. Many of these cases have been registered following the direction of the high court.
According to the report, the department has arrested 103 accused in 2018 compared to 74 in 2017. The accused were arrested from different parts of the country including Kanyakumari, Kolkata and Raipur.
The major cases cracked by the EOW include arrest of the managing trustee of the Selvam Educational and Charitable Trust in Sardar Raja’s Medical College and Hospital fraud and the director of chit fund firm Oak India Multi-State Co-Operative Society from West Bengal.
The EOW submitted charge sheets in 47 cases in 2018 as against 33 in 2017. Twenty charge sheets were submitted in the court as investigation into these cases is still underway under the Section 173(8) of the CrPC.
The important cases in which charge sheets have been submitted include the Hi-tech Group Companies for land fraud and Seven Hills Estate for misappropriation of funds at the Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC) Bhubaneswar.
The courts, on the requests of EOW, have issued ad-interim orders in 17 cases of cheating putting a ban on the transaction of the properties worth over several crores of fraudulent firms and individuals. These orders were sent to the state Finance Department. Since its inception in 2012, the EOW succeeded in getting such orders issued in 55 cases wherein the total amount stands at Rs 309.16 crore.
The EOW claimed 100 per cent conviction rate, as courts have convicted all the accused in six different cases in which investigations were completed.