KOCHI: The city police have arrested a 47-year-old man, who had pulled off a loan scam to the tune of crores along with his wife here. The couple had allegedly used forged documents to pledge the properties of several unsuspecting families, after advertising a scheme promising loans against properties for people with poor CIBIL scores. Several of the duo’s victims are now facing attachment by banks.
Reji Paulose of Tripunithura, who had been on the run ever since the police launched a probe into the couple’s activities three months ago, was finally nabbed from his hideout in Coimbatore on Thursday. “We are still on the lookout for Reji’s wife, Ajitha Reji, 40,” said City Assistant Commissioner of Police Nizamudeen Y. The police will seek Reji’s custody for questioning and further investigation, he added.
Meanwhile, more people have begun to approach the police with complaints against the couple after the arrest was made.Mary T J, a 70-year-old retired schoolteacher of Koothattukulam, is one among the several complainants. “I lost everything because of them. I have been living in a rented house for the past two years,” she said.
Reji had first approached Mary in 2015, offering to help her family get a bank loan for an amount of Rs 30 lakh. “With his help, we got a loan from Allahabad Bank and built a house. But after two years, a team of bank officials came to our property and conducted some valuation procedure. When we asked Reji, he told us it was just a routine procedure. But after a year, we received a notice from the UCO Bank stating that we hadn’t yet made any EMI payment for the Rs 1.30-crore loan we had taken from the bank against our property. We were shocked. It was only then that we understood that we were duped. Reji closed the first loan and used our property documents to take a new loan from another bank using his fake identification documents,” said Mary.
Police have recovered some of these identification documents of Reji, who had allegedly been operating in connivance with a few bank officials. “They used several fake Aadhaar and PAN cards with different addresses,” the police said. Investigation also revealed that the duo had floated up to 13 shell companies and used their registration to prepare forged documents and dupe the banks.
The first fraud case against Reji, his wife, and their manager Vikas was registered at the Ernakulam South police station in January 2019. More details on the couple’s activities came to light after Panampilly Nagar branch manager of Federal Bank lodged a complaint against them on July 1, accusing them of duping the bank.