BENGALURU: A 38-year-old businessman has filed a cheating complaint against five people for duping him of Rs 50 lakh by assuring him an interest-free loan. The businessman, Manjunath V., Managing Director of Yashas Cinemas – an entertainment firm, and a resident of Mulberry Meadows in Devanahalli, filed the complaint at the Yelahanka police station after the accused tried to withdraw Rs 5 crore from his bank account.
The accused used blank cheques Manjunath had given them to withdraw Rs 5 crore from his bank account.
According to the complainant, in 2018, his friends Ganesh Prabhu and Nagabhushan introduced him to Jim Claude, Mathew and Suresh Shetty, directors of Peach Mercantile Pvt Ltd, when Manjunath told them that he wanted an urgent loan.
Claude, Mathew and Shetty convinced Manjunath that they can get him an interest-free loan of Rs 5 crore through a Letter of Credit (LC) issued by banks. They told Manjunath that he needed to pay 18 percent of the loan amount for sanctioning and Manjunath had paid it through several transactions.
The accused later asked Manjunath to furnish the original documents of his properties and also blank cheques. When Manjunath did not get the LC or the loan for a long time, he approached the accused and asked them to return Rs 50 lakh he had paid them. While the accused kept promising Manjunath that they will return the money, he got a shock when he received a call from a bank official saying there was a withdrawal request for Rs 5 crore from his account.
Manjunath immediately blocked the transaction and approached the Yelahanka police and lodged the complaint against the five accused. Meanwhile, the Yelahanka police, who have begun the investigation, have traced Claude, Mathew and Shetty in Mumbai and a team is heading Mumbai to search for them.
