The Enforcement Directorate has arrested Vikas Bhatnagar, assistant manager of the Sahara Credit Cooperative Society, in connection with an alleged embezzlement of ₹14.36 crore of investors’ money. The arrest was made in Punjab, where the accused had been absconding for nearly five years, officials said.
According to investigators, the case relates to large scale misappropriation of funds collected from investors by promising high returns. An FIR was registered in Kanpur in 2021 against Bhatnagar and other officials of the company on charges of cheating and financial irregularities. During the probe, evidence surfaced indicating that crores of rupees had been siphoned off.
As the matter involved serious financial fraud, the state government later handed over the investigation to the Enforcement Directorate. So far, 14 accused have been arrested in the case, while charge sheets have been filed against 14 individuals. A total of 15 accused have been found guilty during the course of the investigation.
The ED said Sahara Credit Cooperative Society had its head office in Lucknow and branches in several districts including Kanpur, Agra, Aligarh, Etawah and Shahjahanpur. Company agents allegedly lured investors by offering unusually high interest rates and collected large sums of money.
Officials said Bhatnagar, a resident of Kidwai Nagar in Kanpur, was posted as assistant manager at the company’s Agra branch. At the time he went underground, he was living in Fatehgarh Sahib in Punjab. After receiving specific intelligence inputs, an ED team traced him and arrested him from Punjab before bringing him to Lucknow for further legal proceedings.
The Enforcement Directorate continues to investigate the case to identify other beneficiaries and trace the remaining proceeds of crime linked to the Sahara cooperative scam.
Discussion about this post