The Enforcement Directorate arrested two directors of Prayag Group on Wednesday for allegedly running deposit mobilising schemes without the necessary clearances from the concerned bodies, including the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

Basudev Bagchi was arrested from his residence in New Alipore and his son Abhik from Mumbai, ED sources said.

The arrests came hours after ED teams conducted search and seizure operations at several addresses allegedly linked to Prayag Group, including in New Alipore and Joka, South 24-Parganas, on Tuesday as a part of its ongoing probe into the alleged illegal deposit mobilising scamin Bengal.

In March 2017, the CBI had arrested the father-son duo after a complaint of allegedly collecting money through illegitimate public deposits.

The CBI had said Prayag Group had collected ₹2,862 crore through publicdeposits.

The two were out on bail a year later. Then the ED began probing the alleged money trail in the case connected with the alleged illegal collection of public deposits to the tune of several hundreds of crores by deposit mobilising companies in Bengal.

The group’s business was spread across the east and northeast covering several states, including Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Tripura and Assam. Senior ED officials alleged the group collected more than ₹1,900 crore from the public by floating illegal deposit mobilising schemes.

Founded in 2002 by Basudev, the group spread its operations into several business ventures like cement, real estate, food processing and tea. Its biggest investment was in the film city in the interiors of West Midnapore, to the tune of nearly ₹1,000 crore, the officials said.

In March 2014, the Union ministry of corporate affairs had released a list of companies against which there were several complaints of allegedly collecting public money through illegal deposit mobilisation schemes. Prayag Group was on the list, the ED officials said, along with a few others, including Saradha Group.

Senior ED officials said over the next few days, they will question the two about a series of transactions involving large amounts that were made from the group’s different accounts and try and match them with the audited accounts.

“The idea is to identify some of the routes that the alleged proceeds of crime took over the years since they were collected by the group,” a senior official said.