The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Crime Branch brought the mastermind allegedly involved in the Rs 12-crore grocery store chain fraud from Agra in Uttar Pradesh and produced him before the OPID Court in Cuttack. The accused director-cum-owner of Armada Bazar Pvt Ltd Parsuram Rajnetbhai Pal is a native of Nagsar village under Gazipur district of Uttar Pradesh. He is currently residing at Narayanpura in Ahmedabad of Gujarat. He was in judicial custody at the Agra District Jail for his involvement in another case in Agra. Rajnetbhai was brought to Odisha on the strength of a production warrant issued by the Designated Court under OPID, Cuttack. A case was registered by the EOW based on the written complaint of one Ruturaj Mohanty, who had alleged Armada Bazar Pvt Ltd and its directors Parsuram Rajnetbhai Pal and Pankaj Kumar Parida for cheating him and his relatives  of Rs 1.26 crore in the name of investment with the company for establishing/opening new grocery and daily utility item marts in different cities of Odisha. Accused Pankaj Parida was responsible for the companys work in Odisha and Jharkhand. He was earlier arrested in the case and now is in judicial custody. The company had floated five schemes namely Mini Mart, Super Mart, Hyper Mart, Mega Mart and Super Mega Mart, for the investment ranging from Rs 20 lakh to Rs 5 crore for a return of 4% interest per month and 3% on the billing amount. Similarly, the company had also floated three other schemes for the franchise of the marts at different places of Odisha like Cuttack, Bhubaneswar, Nayagarh, Bargarh, Jagatsinghpur, Baleswar, Parlakhemundi, Jagannathprasad, Odagaon and Nabarangpur. The company received investment with the assurance to pay 8% interest per month. After collecting more than Rs 12 crore from Odisha alone, the company neither set up the marts nor returned the money to the investors. Rajnetbhai has also defrauded investors in other States too like Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam and Maharashtra in the same manner, the EOW said in a release.

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