BENGALURU: Three persons, including a father-son duo have been arrested by the Bellandur police on charges of cheating more than 6,000 people of over Rs 500 crore. The accused are Shanmugam, his son Dileep and Nagaraj, a cashier, all residents of Bangarapet in Kolar. Shanmugam, owner of a rice mill in Bangarpet, had started ‘Shanmugan Finance’ and ‘RKN Chit Fund Investment’ firms and was receiving investments from people.
Police said that P R Satyanarayan, a resident of Basavanagudi, had filed a complaint with Bellandur police stating that he had paid Rs 6 crore to Shanmugam to buy a piece of land on Sarjapura Road. But he had cheated the complainant by not registering the land in his name nor returning the money. The police, who registered an FIR, arrested the trio in Bangarpet on November 9 and produced them before the magistrate. They were remanded in judicial custody.
“The accused has said that he will return the money within a week. He had developed around 1,000 residential plots for sale in Bangarapet. Besides, he also has property in Bengaluru and Tamil Nadu. We have written to the departments concerned to auction his property and return the money to the investors,” an official said.
It is said that the father-son duo cheated people of more than Rs 500 crore by luring them with high interest rates. “They used to pay the interest regularly in the initial stage and gained investors’ trust. After more people invested, they stopped paying the interest and also did not return the principal amount. After demonetisation, they had started giving cheques to investors but they had bounced. Thus, several people filed complaints against them with the police and courts. Many investors had also met the Chief Minister recently, seeking his help in the matter,” police said.