Bhubaneswar, Jan 2: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Odisha Police arrested the prime accused in a Rs 40 crore share trading fraud case from West Bengal, an official said on Friday.

The accused was identified as Amit Mandal, a resident of South Boilapara under Bishnupur police station area in West Bengal’ s Bankura district.

The case was registered following a complaint by Sushant Kumar Das of Khordha district in Odisha, who alleged that Mandal and his associates lured him into investing in share trading schemes by promising monthly returns ranging between 3.5 and 7 per cent. Das deposited Rs8.5 lakh between 2022 and 2024, after being assured of returns through agreements and post-dated cheques issued by Mandal.

Investigations revealed that Mandal, operating under the fictitious entity “Kalpana Financial Services,” had duped hundreds of investors in Odisha and West Bengal. The EOW found that between 2020 and 2024, Mandal collected deposits from nearly 500 investors in Odisha and 100 in West Bengal, amounting to more than Rs120 crore. At present, he owes investors over Rs40 crore.

According to officials, Mandal initially paid returns to depositors but later defaulted. In 2023, he falsely assured investors that their money would be reinvested in his newly floated company, Kalpamit Consultancy Private Limited, before absconding. To win public confidence, Mandal and his associates organized meetings in hotels at Angul and Bhubaneswar, executed agreements, and issued post-dated cheques.

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The probe further revealed that Mandal collected deposits through his personal accounts in ICICI and HDFC banks, as well as accounts linked to Kalpamit Consultancy and his associates. Investigators traced transactions worth Rs122 crore in one of his ICICI accounts, confirming the scale of the fraud.

Officials said Mandal’s modus operandi relied on using successive deposits to pay earlier investors, a practice resembling a Ponzi scheme. His arrest marks a significant breakthrough in the case, which has left hundreds of depositors across Odisha and West Bengal in financial distress.