Five held for duping businessman by promising loan

CHENNAI: The city police on Thursday busted a racket which cheated a retired naval officer of Rs 26 lakh by promising him a loan of Rs 15 crore from a bank. The arrested were R Jayakumar (47), a resident of Otteri, S Alexe Raja alias Dass (33), a resident of Manali New Town, A Basheer (40), a resident of Royapettah, R Kutty (37), a resident of Basin Bridge, and K Pradeep (29), the kingpin, from Kerala.
"Though the fraudsters were operating for the past nine years through agents who dealt with businessmen from other states, they never appeared in police records," a police officer said.
Their modus operandi was simple. According to the police, whenever a businessman responded to an online advertisement (usually pop-ups) offering huge loan amounts (crores of rupees), agents would pass on his name and details to the fraudsters. They would then approach the prospective victim and promise to arrange the loan if a fee, running into lakhs of rupees, was paid. They would then pocket the amount and do nothing. If ever a businessman complained or turned aggressive, the fraudsters would pacify him by returning 50 to 60 percent of the amount he had paid. Since most of the businessmen were from outside Tamil Nadu, they would not pursue the matter.
All this came to light when the victim, VRB Krishnamurthy (49), a retired navy officer who is running a transport company in Mumbai, Aditya Logistics India Limited, lodged a complaint with the city police. According to the police, Krishnamurthy had applied for a loan a few months ago in response to an online advertisement. Since the accused had links with agents in Delhi and Mumbai, they had gathered information about Krishnamurthy. Pradeep contacted Krishnamurthy and promised to arrange a loan for him from a bank in Chennai through his agents. As per Pradeep's advice, Krishnamurthy met Jayakumar and three others in a hotel in T Nagar. They promised to get him a loan in five working days and collected Rs 26 lakh as processing fee'.
The loan never materialised. Whenever Krishnamurthy approached Pradeep and his agents, they gave evasive replies. Krishnamurthy lodged a complaint with the city police commissioner a month ago. The petition was forwarded to the CCB for further inquiry. The accused approached the victim for a compromise, but Krishnamurthy refused to give in and preferred to pursue the case. The CCB police then arrested the five.
"They managed to evade trouble so far. If a victim got aggresive, they would sort out the issue by paying 50% or 60% of the amount they had taken. Though the victims were unhappy, they never lodged any police complaint," inspector R Karunakaran of CCB wing III told TOI.
Initial inquiries revealed that Jayakumar and Dass knew each other since childhood. Most of them are school dropouts. However, they learnt to speak fluent English and to use the internet.
The arrested were remanded in judicial custody after being produced before the III metropolitan magistrate's court in George Town court on Thursday.
selvaraj.a@timesgroup.com