COIMBATORE: It’s business as usual at the handicrafts shop on Cross Cut Road, Gandhipuram, once owned by self-styled godman Annamalai aka Sri Sri Selvam Siddhar, who was sentenced to 27 years in prison by a court in the US State of Georgia on Wednesday.
Annamalai is believed to have used the shop’s employees as benamis in transferring his ill-gotten money from the US to India. The court had convicted him on charges of credit card fraud. He used to charge ‘fees’ from his followers and use their credit card details to swindle their money.
Speaking to Express, S M Ravichandran, a member of the Cyber Society of India, who assists the Coimbatore Cyber Crime Cell in tracking down criminals online, said that Annamalai had cheated people in the US of about 2-3 million dollars.
He had transferred cash to the account of one SV Muthukrishnan, who was the prime witness who helped the prosecution in building a water-tight case against his former boss.
Muthukrishnan, who was working as Annamalai’s assistant, had opened a joint account with P Arumugam, a cashier-cum-manager at Chettinadu Handicrafts. Annamalai is said to have transferred around Rs 50 lakh in cash between 2005 and 2007.