Bengaluru: The Vidhana Soudha police have arrested eight people, including the son of a former MLA, who claimed to be a minister in the state cabinet to allegedly cheat a businesswoman from Tamil Nadu of Rs 1.12 crore. The accused assured her of a Rs 100 crore loan from the government and a profitable deal from the Karnataka government.
The accused have been identified as P. Karthikeyan, 60, and Swaroop, 24, residents of Seshadripuram Main Road, Manikantha, 25, a resident of Banashankari 3rd Stage, Suman K.V., 27, and Abhilash, 27, both residents of Thyagaraja Nagar, R. Karthik, 34, and Prabhu M., 30, from Tamil Nadu. The police said that Karthikeyan claimed to be the son of Palaniappan an MLA from the Shivajinagar constituency in the 1950s and told the businesswoman that his name was K.K. Shetty, a minister in the Karnataka cabinet.
The victim, Indira, who was in need of a big loan for a cashew nut business, had approached Karthikeyan. He assured her that he would facilitate a Rs 100 crore loan for her, as his department had surplus funds. In return, he asked her for Rs 1.12 crore as commission. To make her believe that he is a minister, he even held a meeting in one of the vacant chambers of Vidhana Soudha with the help of one of the employees of the legislature.
On January 2, Indira met the accused at a hotel, where the other accused posed themselves as his bodyguards. She paid him the money in cash, after which the accused disappeared and switched off their mobile phones. Realising that she had been conned, Indira filed a complaint at the Vidhana Soudha police station.
Investigations revealed that the accused arranged a car from the Legislators’ Home, carrying the government of Karnataka board and took a visitors’ pass to enter Vidhana Soudha which made her believe that he was a minister.
