BENGALURU: A gang allegedly cheated a BJP leader of Rs 4.25 crore on the pretext of helping him get a loan recently. Ravindra H, a former BBMP corporator who had contested the Assembly elections on a BJP ticket from Vijayanagar, filed a complaint with the KP Agrahara police against five men who allegedly cheated him on Wednesday.
Police said that the alleged fraud took place between April and July last year and the victim filed a complaint now as the accused refused to return the money. “The complainant is a land developer and needed Rs 150 crore to develop a residential layout. To arrange the money, he wanted to take a low-interest loan. He spoke about it to his friend Dhruvakumar, who put him in touch with Santosh and Kuppuswamy. They duo put him in touch with one Hari Gopalakrishna Nadar, a resident of Chennai, who promised to arrange the loan,” the police said.
“The accused drew up an agreement with the complainant at a sub-registrar’s office in Kerala. Even after paying the registration fee, the accused allegedly took a huge sum from the complainant for getting work done. They introduced Ravindra to one Ranjith Panikar, who was supposed to give him the Rs 150 crore loan,” the police added.
As the complainant did not get the loan even after paying Rs 4.25 crore to the accused, who started avoiding him, he decided to file a complaint. “We have registered a cheating case against five people, Nadar, Ranjith Panikar and their associates Ranjan, Mubarak and Abhishek Gupta, who took money as well,” the police said.