At 9, Ezra Street in Kolkata, the centrepiece of a Rs 317 crore cyberfraud probe in which industrialist Pawan Ruia has been named accused, stands a dilapidated, three-storeyed, colonial-era building with exposed patches of bricks and a jumble of hanging electricity wires. On its top floor, nameplates of six companies hang outside a 5×7 sq ft room, called ‘Room No. 47’.
Among them, only Melrose Creation Private Limited is one of the five shell companies named in the FIR. The other four firms are Hughli Machineries Pvt Ltd, Gain E Commerce, Dahisar Traders Pvt Ltd, Xettle Technologies Pvt Ltd.
According to the Cyber Crime Wing of the West Bengal Police, which unearthed the “organised cybercrime network” after launching a probe into an individual complaint in April 2024, the racket involves up to 148 shell companies, with 73 of them having 9, Ezra Street, Kolkata, as their registered address.
Besides the five companies, Pawan Kumar Ruia, the chairman of the Ruia Group, his family members – Raghav Ruia, Pallabi Ruia, Sarita Ruia, Sakshi Ruia – and his close associate Rahul Verma – have been named in the FIR, registered on November 5.
According to the investigators, PAN and transaction analysis of these 148 companies showed that their accounts were used to receive and launder cheated funds.
How the probe began
It was a single fraud complaint that led to the unearthing of the massive cyberfraud racket. While probing the complaint, lodged at Bidhannagar Cyber Crime on April 3, 2024, the investigators found that a part of the cheated fund was initially credited to nationalised bank account and immediately siphoned to the current account of Hughli Machineries Pvt Ltd, which subsequently transferred the money to another current account of the same company.
“A search of the PAN details of this company (Hughli Machineries Pvt Ltd) showed 11 current bank accounts against which the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCCRP) had a record of 544 complaints involving cyberfraud of approximately Rs 97 crore,” said a police officer involved in the probe.
“Further analysis showed multiple linked companies—Gain E-Commerce, Melrose Creation Pvt Ltd, Dahisar Traders Pvt Ltd, Xettle Technologies Pvt Ltd, among others — having transactions with these 11 accounts,” said the official.
DIN (Document Identification Number) searches indicated that 16 interlinked companies have 11 common directors, who collectively hold directorships in 186 companies across India, the officer said, adding, of these, 147 are registered under the Registrar of Companies (ROC), Kolkata, and 73 share the same address at 9, Ezra Street, Kolkata-700001.
“Physical verification found no offices at that address, indicating shell or fictitious entities,” the officer added.
When The Indian Express visited the said address, it found a web of non-existent companies, only on paper. The 5×7 square feet room, the registered office of Melrose Creation Private Limited, was locked, but one could see six chairs, two tables inside, with a file labelled “Ruia IT details” placed on one.
Staff from an adjacent private company said “Room 47” is “never active,” with a few people visiting only “once every one or two months”. “For the last 15 years, I haven’t seen this office operating from here,” the staffer added.
The owner of a petromac company, operating from the same building, said, “It is a common practice here. You will find nameplates of six to seven companies outside one room. Sometimes, one person also has two to three companies registered under the same address.”
An employee of a private trading company, who has worked there for 15 years, said, “Even for loan purposes, people use nameplates before the bank comes for verification, and once it is done, the office ceases to exist.”
More than a year and a half after the investigation began into the cyber fraud network, the West Bengal Police made the first arrest on November 1 this year. The Cyber Crime Branch arrested 27-year-old Rahul Verma, a close associate of industrialist Pawan Ruia, from Delhi.
“On questioning Verma, and the money trail led to the involvement of Pawan Ruia, Raghav Ruia, and others, who laundered money through multiple mule accounts and crypto wallets. Members of the Ruia family, namely Pawan Ruia, Sarita Ruia, Raghav Ruia, Pallabi Ruia, Sakshi Ruia are identified as key beneficiaries, with direct receipt of cyber fraud money from 23 complainants. The racket, operational since early 2024 or before, has defrauded over 1,000 victims across India through fake investment schemes, and digital arrest,” read the FIR, which was filed on November 5.
The FIR has been registered under various sections of the BNS and IT Act, including section 66C (identity theft), 66D (cheating by personation), 111 (abetment of organised crime), 317(4) (causing grievous hurt), 336 (endangering life or personal safety of others), 339 (wrongful restraint), 340 (wrongful confinement), among others.
“We suspect an organised cybercrime network. NCCRP complaints reveal that an organised racket has been working in duping and cheating numerous people since the beginning of 2024 (or possibly before that), and continuing the same. They cheated victims in the name of false promises of huge returns on investment, digital arrest, and many other types of cyber fraud. There are many victims, more than 1,000, spread across West Bengal and other parts of the country,” said a senior officer involved in the probe.
“We suspect that the network of cyber criminals is involved as an organised group in cheating by setting up call centres and creating a web of accounts and fake companies for landing and siphoning of the cheated funds,” the officer added.
The Cyber Crime unit of the police said it has seized “incriminating” documents, gadgets, and servers.
The scale of the fraud could be gauged from the fact that 1,379 complaints were lodged till October 31, 2025, with people losing Rs 2,315 crore in cyber fraud, according to the NCCRP records.
The investigation now centres on the direct or indirect involvement of Pawan Ruia.
“Whether shell companies were used to siphon off money or he (Pawan Ruia) is directly involved in planning and conspiracy is now being probed,” said an official, adding they have summoned directors of the companies named in the FIR.
For industrialist Pawan Ruia, this is not the first time that he has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. He was arrested by the CID in 2016 in a Rs 50 crore forgery case filed by the Indian Railways. Known for acquiring companies and attempting to revive several ailing PSUs in West Bengal, which earned him the sobriquet of ‘Turnaround Tycoon’, Pawan Ruia shot to fame after the Ruia Group, a company which he founded in 1993, took over Jessop & Co – a 225-year-old heavy engineering PSU.
Very recently, in 2021, he had shown interest in acquiring Air India, meeting the required Rs 3,500 crore net worth criteria.
In 2005, when the Left Front was in power in West Bengal, the Ruia Group acquired Dunlop India Ltd and Falcon Tyres Ltd.
Pawan Ruia, considered close to the then chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, had promised to revive the company and help in generating jobs. However, plaguing labour issues at the Dunlop, as well as Jessop, units led to a record minimal output, and Jessop was shut down in 2014 – three years after the TMC came to power in the state.
His face-off with the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government began after she questioned his failings. The state government eventually passed two separate legislations in February 2016 to take over the management and control of Jessop and Dunlop from the Ruia Group.
The same year, the industrialist was investigated by the West Bengal CID for his alleged role in a series of fires and thefts at the closed Jessop unit. He was charged under IPC sections 435, 436 (mischief by fire/explosive substance), and 120B (criminal conspiracy).