YSRCP leader and former MLA Malla Vijay Prasad, the Chairman of A.P. Education and Welfare Infrastructure Development Corporation (APEWIDC), was taken to Bhubaneswar on a transit remand, after the Economic Offences Wing of Odisha CID arrested him on Monday night in a chit fund case surfaced in 2019.
He was produced before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Visakhapatnam on Monday, taken to the King George Hospital (KGH) for a medical checkup, before being taken to Odisha. As per a release by the Odisha Police, Mr. Vijay Prasad was arrested under various sections such as 420/406/467/468/471/120-B of the IPC read with Section 4,5 & 6 of the PC & MC Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978 / Section 6 of the OPID Act, 2011. He was produced before the Court of OPID, Cuttack on Tuesday.
According to police, Mr. Vijay Prasad allegedly duped a large number of investors of crores by promising high rate of interest through different deposit schemes floated by the Wellfare Group of Companies. He is the managing director of the firm.
As per the Odisha Police, investigation has revealed that the Wellfare Building & Estates Private Limited was initially registered with the ROC, Hyderabad and subsequently changed to Kolkata during 2011, having its head office in Visakhapatnam and a registered office in Kolkata. Between 2009 and 2014, the company operated its branch offices in Bhubaneswar, Narsinghpur (Cuttack) and Nayagarh in Odisha.
It has been ascertained that the company, represented through its managing director (Mr. Vijay Prasad) and others, had lured people with false promise of higher returns and unauthorisedly collected huge amounts from investors before absconding from the locality after closing down their offices, said police.
Mr. Vijay Prasad, who was in the Congress earlier, won from the West Assembly Constituency of Visakhapatnam in 2009. He switched his loyalty to the YSRCP and contested again 2019, but lost to TDP MLA P.G.V.R. Naidu. In August, this year, he was appointed the Chairman of the APEWIDC.
Earlier in 2016, the CBI raided his houses and offices, acting on a complaint filed by the Jharkhand government pertaining to alleged economic offences.
