CHENNAI: A 39-year-old man was arrested by the Central Crime Branch wing of the city police on Sunday for cheating medical aspirants of several lakh rupees promising them MBBS seats.
The accused, P Sethumadhavan, was running an event management firm, Advaitha Corporate Service at Trustpuram in Kodambakkam and has been cheating gullible aspirants for the past three years, police said.
A special team was formed following a complaint by an assistant professor from Trichy who lost Rs 37 lakh to the accused after he promised the professor’s daughter a MBBS seat at a private institute in Karnataka.
Based on a complaint by T Selvamani, the CCB police who took over the case tracked the accused and held him. Investigations revealed that Sethumadhavan had demanded a sum of Rs 37 lakh in June last year promising a seat at Siddhartha Medical college in Tumkur. However, after getting the money, he failed to either get the seat or return the money and kept on dodging the family whenever they approached them.
“A family friend of the complainant had referred the accused to them. During investigations, we found that even his family friend had been duped of Rs 33 lakh. Unaware that he was a fraud, he referred them to others,” an investigating officer said.
Police said that the accused had usurped close to Rs 4 crore in a similar manner. After registration of a case, he was remanded to Judicial custody.