The Ernakulam Central police on Tuesday arrested two persons accused of cheating people of crores on the promise of securing bank loans in Kerala.
The arrested were identified as Lingamoorthy, a.k.a. Ramalingam (53), and Shanmukhavel Namashivayam (40), both residents of Pudukkottai in Tamil Nadu. They were arrested from Pudukkottai by a team led by Ernakulam Central inspector S. Vijayasankar.
The accused had launched a company named Money Max Home Fin at MG Road in January 2020. The highlight of their advertising was the promise to secure bank loans irrespective of CIBIL score against a commission of 10%. They also sought a processing time of five months to get the loans approved.
The police said that the accused plotted the fraud meticulously. They took a house on rent at Cheranalloor and the first accused then secured an Aadhaar card in that address. The same address was used for the agreement of the rented office and, later, for all their office operations. This posed a tough task to the police in tracking down their real address.
The accused conjured up and executed the fraud in five months. They hired local people as office staff, while the office furniture and other paraphernalia were taken on rent, according to the police.
Accused abscond
For the next five months, they took the victims for a ride using this facade and kept collecting documents and advances from them. One day, they suddenly absconded with the crores they had collected as advance, the police said.
Several victims have since petitioned the police about the fraud. However, it took the police a while to locate the accused as they had pre-empted the possibilities for that along the way.
The police, however, managed to track them down in Tamil Nadu with the help of the cyber cell. A hunt is on for others possibly involved in the scam.
A team led by Central Assistant Commissioner C. Jayakumar and Mr. Vijayasankar and comprising of sub inspector Premkumar, assistant sub inspector E.M. Shaji, senior civil police officer Aneesh, civil police officers Ignatius, Reji, and Rajesh made the arrest. The accused were produced before the court and remanded in custody.
