Chit fund entity Pincon Group chairman lands in ED net in Kolkata

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) said on Saturday that it has recently arrested Manoranjan Roy, chairman of West Bengal-based chit fund entity the Pincon Group.

Roy has been arrested on charges of misappropriation of funds collected from several investors as deposits under various multi-level marketing schemes of the ponzi company. He has been remanded to judicial custody until 4 September.

“The ED investigation revealed that Pincon group of companies controlled by Roy and his associates collected money from people through fraudulent representations, luring innocent public with high rate of interest upon maturity of deposits collected under different schemes like MIS, FD and RD.

"However, they failed to pay the investors their dues after maturity and thereby cheated them. In total, Pincon Group collected Rs 638 crore (approx) from the public in the names of the above fraudulent schemes,” a statement issued by the ED read.

In July this year, the ED had arrested Kaustuv Roy, a Kolkata-based businessman and CEO of a popular Bengali news channel, known for his close links to West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, on charges of financial defalcation.

Following the arrest, the ED had reportedly found definite clues about Kaustuv Roy’s involvement in the affairs of the Pincon Group.

In August 2022, two teams from the ED and the income tax department had conducted simultaneous raids at the residence and offices of Kaustuv Roy. At time, the chief minister had described the agencies' actions as a ploy by the BJP and the union government to gag the media.

Kaustuv Roy, a Kolkata-based businessman, had been involved in multiple sectors such as computers, software and media.

In March 2018, as the director of RP Infosystems, he was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with a Rs 515 crore bank fraud scam involving a consortium of banks, including Punjab National Bank and Canara Bank.

In September 2021, a Bengali channel owned by Kaustuv Roy received a warning about the cancellation of its licence from the union ministry of information & broadcasting, citing the ministry of home affairs' denial of a "security clearance".

In 2020, a lower court in Tamluk in Bengal's East Midnapore district handed a sentence of life imprisonment to Manoranjan Roy in the Pincon Group case, filed in 2017 in Khejuri police station. The court also handed life sentences to Roy's wife Moushumi Roy, who was one of the directors of the group, and six other directors.