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Kolkata-based entrepreneur and Chairman of the now defunct Xenitis Group Santanu Ghosh has been remanded to Enforcement Directorate custody for five days.
Ghosh, who was arrested last night for his alleged connection in the multi-crore Saradha scam, was presented before a city court on Wednesday where his bail plea was rejected.
According to sources, the arrest was made after the Saradha Group Chairman, Sudipta Sen, supposedly told ED officials that Gosh sold a “non- productive” automobile company to him for ₹52 crore.
Moreover, Ghosh is said to have raised money from banks, including two state-run lenders, by pledging assets of a Saradha Group company.
The Saradha Group that had raised money from lakhs of depositors through Ponzi schemes went bust in April 2013. Sudipta Sen was arrested later that month from Kashmir and has since then been in jail. At present, he is under the CBI custody.
The other notable arrest in the case has been that of MP Kunal Ghosh. Ghosh, who too is in CBI’s custody, was the head of the Group’s media ventures.
Rise of Ghosh Santanu Ghosh, incidentally, shot to fame in 2003 with the launch of Xenitis Group’s sub- ₹10,000 brand of PCs — Amar PC.
While the PCs were sold as “Amar PC” in the Eastern region, it was branded “ Aapna PC” in the north; “ Namma PC” in south and “ Amchi PC” in west.
Xenitis also set up a hardware component manufacturing unit at Chinsurah in Hooghly district, some 40-odd km from Kolkata.
Xenitis later forayed into bicycle and two-wheeler manufacturing. The two-wheelers were said to have been launched through Global Automobiles and were priced below ₹20,000.
Tell All Letter Interestingly, Sudipta Sen in tell-all letter to the CBI had first named Ghosh and mentioned that there were two others with him who came to sell a Bengali news channel. The deal he claimed was reportedly settled at ₹30 crore.
Ghosh’s name features for a second time when he approached the Saradha Group Chairman for sell of his automobile company. Sen, in his letter, had said that the company had “huge liabilities” and he was forced to purchase it.
He further alleged that no manufacturing took place at Global Automobiles and Ghosh had generated false bills by showing non-existent manufacturing activity.
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