A former sales manager of an insurance firm was arrested by the Prakasam police on Friday for allegedly cheating a pastor from Chimakurthy of ₹1.36 crore since September 2017.
Acting on a complaint lodged during the Spandana programme by the pastor’s sister who claimed to have parted with her gold ornaments to save his brother from a perceived IT raid, police nabbed the accused in Nellore.
Ongole Deputy Superintendent of Police K.V.V.N.V. Prasad told reporters here that 32-year-old Sk. Gulab Jani developed intimacy with the pastor Chinnappa Reddy by helping him quickly get the insurance policy settled by posing himself as the branch manager.
Police seized ₹30 lakh, 200 gram gold ornaments, empty promissory notes, cheque books and site documents from the accused.
Initially, the pastor gave ₹5 lakh to open a fixed deposit account in the name of Mr. Gulab, who had promised to pay an additional interest, a concession given to employees. He promptly paid the interest, without actually depositing the money in the the bank, a sister concern of the insurance company. The accused reportedly collected ₹25 lakh from the pastor till August 2018 by promising to open fixed deposit accounts without any PAN card and Income Tax deduction at source.
Later, threatening that Income Tax officials were going to arrest him for depositing huge sums in bank, the accused allegedly extorted another ₹19.25 lakh from the pastor and also took away gold ornaments weighing 450 gram of the latter’s sister to ensure that there were no IT raids.
