Chennai: After giving a run to his ‘clients’ and the cops for over a year, a con man from Sowcarpet who duped at least three persons of several lakhs by luring them to invest in a ‘rice pulling’ vessel was arrested by the police on Wednesday.
The arrested, Ravindra Kumar, a 51-year-old from Naatu Pillai Kovil Street in Sowcarpet along with two others had lured an iron scrap merchant and other businessmen in and around Mannadi in North Chennai to invest in the ‘rice pulling’ vessel promising them double the amount of returns for their investment.
A special team of North Beach police picked up the accused on Tuesday night when he visited the city. He has been absconding for more than a year, police said.
According to the police, Ravindra was introduced to one of the complainants, Kannan a year ago. Kannan is an iron scrap dealer and is also a co-producer in few small-budget Tamil movies, police said.
Ravindra initially asked Kannan to invest '25 lakh in procuring the ve-ssel from abroad. The deal never went through and Ravindra returned the money. However, the accused came up with a similar offer again and the businessman too fell for it, police said. “Kannan gave Ravindra an amount of '19 lakh to get a rice pulling vessel,” a police officer said.
Ravindra’ associates, Rahul and Basha, both from Coimbatore would conduct ‘business’ meetings with the prospective clients in luxury hotels in Chennai to lend credibility to their con job.
Meanwhile, neither the ‘rice-pulling’ vessel reached Kannan nor the money returned. Efforts to reach Ravindra too proved futile after which he approached the police. Ravindra was produced before a magistrate in Georgetown court on Wednesday and remanded in judicial custody. The hunt is on for his accomplices, police said.
