A little over a month after the arrest of actor Leena Maria Paul in multi-crore cheating cases, her boyfriend and co-accused, Sukesh Chandrashekhar alias Balaji, was arrested by the Delhi police in Kolkata on Thursday.
On May 27, the south district Delhi police, along with the Chennai police, conducted a raid at a farmhouse in Fatehpur Beri where Sukesh and Leena had been living for the past few months.
While Leena and four bouncers had been arrested then, Sukesh managed to give the raiding teams the slip, said deputy commissioner (south), Delhi police, B.S. Jaiswal.
“After the incident, we had launched a hunt for Sukesh. During the period he was absconding, he frequently changed his location and stayed in places such as Jaipur, Mumbai, Goa, Kolkata and Siliguri. From Siliguri, he would, at times, cross over to neighbouring Nepal,” said Mr. Jaiswal.
After receiving a tip-off about Sukesh’s presence around the Kankarbita border in Siliguri, two separate teams were dispatched to Siliguri and Kolkata.
“Finally, on Thursday, Sukesh was apprehended at South City Mall in Jadavpur, Kolkata. Two diamond rings worth Rs. 75 lakh and a diamond earring worth Rs. 12 lakh were recovered from him,” said Mr. Jaiswal.
Twenty two-year-old Sukesh, who had been pursuing MBA from a college in Bengaluru, collected details on various tender notices issued by government departments by visiting their websites. He then used the information to call prospective buyers by posing either as a senior administrative officer or someone with good political connections.
He promised to help them bag the tenders and collected money in return. After collecting the money, he switched off his mobile phones and never got back to the people who paid him.
Several cheating cases had been registered against him in Chennai and Bengaluru. In two such cases registered in Chennai, pertaining to sums amounting to Rs. 19.22 crore and Rs. 72 lakh, Maria was the co-accused and the police had been looking for the two for quite some time.
Sukesh who is fond of expensive watches and luxury cars took to crime to support his lifestyle.
He and Maria have known each other for the last three years, said the police.
Interrogations revealed that of the Rs. 19 crore Sukesh allegedly amassed by cheating, he spent Rs. 7 crore on high-end cars and another crore on jewellery. What he did with the remaining money is yet to be ascertained and would now be investigated by the Chennai police.
