THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Crime Branch on Friday arrested actor couple, Dhanya Mary Varghese and John Jacob and John’s brother Samuel Jacob for allegedly cheating several people after making false promises of constructing flats and villas in a stipulated time by collecting a huge sum from them.
The father of John and Samuel, and the prime accused in the case, Jacob Samson, 61, was arrested by the Crime Branch earlier this November. The accused were nabbed from Nagercoil with the help of city shadow police.
According to police, they went absconding since the police began searching for them based on the complaints lodged by several customers. Since 2011, the accused had been promising to sell new flats and villas to the investors at prominent locations in the city by running a company titled ‘Samson and Sons Private Limited’.
They had collected a whopping Rs 100 crore from the investors for constructing around 500 apartments and 20 villas in the names of Sharon hills, Orchid valley, Sanctuary, Pearl Crust, Selen apartment, Nova castle, Merryland, Green Courtyard and Angel wood within a period of two years.
They also collected an additional amount of Rs 30 crore by offering returns to some of the customers with high-interest rate. The dimension of cheating will be huge as many of the investors are presently in foreign countries. If those complaints are also taken into account, the volume of cheating will go up.
During interrogation, it was learnt that the accused had diverted the funds to other investments. They were absconding at Bengaluru, Chennai and finally at Nagercoil. The accused have been remanded in judicial custody and the police said that they would be taken into the custody for further interrogation.