Gangtok, May 6 : Sikkim Police on Sunday raided the Gangtok office of Rose Valley, a ponzi scheme operating out of West Bengal.
Close on the heels of recent crackdowns on multi crores scam involving the Saradha chit fund company, the searches were conducted in Rose Valley office.
A joint team of Sikkim Police and Gangtok's Sub Divisional Magistrate raided Rose Valley's office at Tadong here and seized several incriminating documents and a computer set of the shady money making scheme operational in Sikkim since the past few years.
The raid was conducted following a police complaint that one Passang Bhutia had been running the Rose Valley chit fund scheme from Gangtok. Documents and money receipts recovered from the now-abandoned office suggested it was operational since 2006-07.
Police broke the lock and conducted the searches as per a search warrant issued under CrPC Section 93 from the District Magistrate. The office has been sealed after the raids, it is informed.
East District Police Superintendent Manoj Tiwari said an unidentified person secretly removed the office's signboard and hid somewhere last night after which authorities sensed some foul play.
It is suspected that the Gangtok office had collected several crores of rupees in the name of several insurance, para-banking, real estate and plantation projects.
The police have been searching for Passang Bhutia, who operated the Gangtok office as the Senior Field Zonal Manager, Grade-1.
Tiwari said unlike Bengal, the raid was initiated as per the Sikkim Protection of Interests of Depositors Act 2010.
He said the Rose Valley agents claimed they were just disbursing deposited amounts of the investors.
‘We will go through the documents and file a case accordingly', he said adding that forensic experts would be called to extract the computer database.
‘Since these firms operate as multi-level network chains, we are mainly focused on investigating it rather than making arrests at present', he said appealing to the people to report any such suspected incident to the police and law enforcing agencies.
It is learnt that the company has already shut down its office setup in Singtam, Gayzing and Mangan.
Meanwhile, a separate case has been filed against Prayag Group, a similar company having its office at Deorali bazaar here.
In recent past, fraudulent financial institutions namely Tina Finalease, Siddhi and Bharosha had duped crores of rupees from the Sikkimese people who had invested their money after receiving promises of high interests.
Many such financial institutions had defaulted in return of deposits on maturity, thereby inviting public resentment, socio-economic problems and law and order problems.
In September 2010, the Sikkim Legislative Assembly had passed the Act to protect the interests of depositors.
