BENGALURU: Central Crime Branch (CCB) sleuths have cracked down on financiers who harassed public by charging exorbitant interest rates. Nine financiers including two women have been arrested. They seized Rs 69.16 lakh cash, documents related to various properties and blank cheques from them.
As many as 10 teams of the CCB led by Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Alok Kumar, conducted raids on the houses of financiers early on Wednesday morning. The search operations continued till late in the afternoon.
Addressing a press conference, city police commissioner T Suneel Kumar said, “Following complaints by the public, a special drive was conducted against financiers charging huge interest rates. The arrested persons used to lend money to small businessmen against interest rates ranging from 10-30 per cent. There are several other financiers under our radar and special drives against them will continue”.
The raids were conducted in City Market, Kamakshipalya, Mico Layout, Jayanagar, Byatarayanapura, Hanumanthanagar and Chandra Layout police stations’ limits. In Kamakshipalya, the police raided the house of Manjunath alias Miracle Manja in Vrishabhavathi Nagar and seized 28 blank cheques collected from those to whom he had lent loan. Besides, documents including registration paper of four residential sites were seized from him.
A father and son, who were lending money against daily interest, were arrested from their house in BTM Layout. Bhaskar and his son Dileep were arrested and `33.50 lakh cash was seized.
History-sheeter Velu, who has also produced a few Kannada movies, was arrested in City Market police station limits and documents including five sale deeds were seized from him.
Two women financiers, Jayamma of Moodalapalya and Krishnamma of Chandra Layout, were also arrested. Three cars, 19 cheques and other documents were seized from Jayamma. The others arrested are Venkatesh, Lingaraju, both residents of Panchasheelanagar in Chandra Layout, and Subramani, a resident of Hanumthanagar. CCB sleuths seized `33 lakh cash from Subramani.
Another financier, Chetan, whose residence in Jayanagar 4th Block, was raided, managed to escape and efforts are on to nab him.