PALAKKAD:The luck of Mangalamkadan Sulaiman, who duped several people in the name of a Pakistan lottery, ran out on Monday when he was arrested by the Telangana police.
Sulaiman, 46, of Karumanamkurissy, Cherpulassery, is accused of cheating people by making them believe that they had hit the Pakistan lottery jackpot and collecting money from them in the name of processing fee. The Telangana police arrested Sulaiman from a rented house in Eliyapetta with the help of Cherpulassery police. Cherpulassery CI Deepak Kumar said a case has been registered against Sulaiman, son of Moideen Kutty, in Telangana in this regard.
“He would text gullible people claiming they had won the jackpot and would ask them to deposit money into a bank account for ‘processing’ their reward. Police inquiry revealed the account belonged to a person in Cherpulassery here,” said Kumar.
At the time of his arrest, Sulaiman had 130 ATM cards and 120 passbooks in possession. It was found he was receiving money in the accounts from countries like Yemen and Pakistan.
Based on a report of the state special branch, Kerala police was also monitoring his activities.
“Sulaiman had also enrolled several college students, whom he paid `5,000 for opening bank accounts and collecting passbooks and ATM cards in their names. In a single day, he would withdraw as much as `6 lakh from the several bank accounts he used,” said Kumar.
Even on Saturday, Sulaiman had withdrawn `6 lakh from many bank accounts. Initially, police thought the funds to be hawala transactions, but later suspected the money was being transferred to people involved in extremist activities.
The moolah pouring into the accounts operated by him was primarily distributed to persons in Malappuram and Kozhikode districts.Sulaiman is said to have confessed about getting `2,000 as commission for every `1 lakh he delivered. The police have now launched investigations to find out the owners of the bank accounts to which the funds were transferred from abroad.