The Managing Director of a top defaulting company linked to the ₹5,600-crore payment crisis at the now defunct National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL) has been arrested, taking the number of those held in the scam to six.

Surender Gupta, Managing Director of PD Agroprocessors, was arrested on Thursday, an official of Mumbai Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) said on Thursday.

PD Agroprocessors is the third biggest defaulter and owes over ₹600 crore to the commodity spot exchange, promoted by the Jignesh Shah-led Financial Technologies.

Gupta, who is Chairman and Promoter of another firm Dunar Foods Ltd, was produced before a local court, which remanded him in police custody till March 12.

Bollywood links

Gupta is also Director of White Rice Entertainment, which is producing a film, Gang of Ghosts .

“Gupta, in connivance with other NSEL officials, obtained loans without submitting proper plans to return them. He was not forthcoming during investigations. He pumped in the money he raised from NSEL into Dunar Foods,” the officer said.

“We also suspect he utilised the loan money in movie making,” another police officer said.

Earlier, the EOW had arrested five accused in the scam, which came to light in July 2013. They are former NSEL CEO Anjani Sinha, two mid-level executives of the exchange Amit Mukherjee and Jay Bahukhundi; NK Proteins MD Nilesh Patel, and Lotus Refineries CMD Arun Sharma, who is also a film financier.

NK Proteins and Lotus Refineries were among the biggest NSEL defaulters. A 9,100-page chargesheet against the five accused was filed in January.

However, the chargesheet did not mention the names of Shah (Promoter-Director of NSEL) and another Director Joseph Massey, who allegedly played key roles in the fraud.

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