Chennai: A 26-year-old-conman who was collecting money from a sponsor in the name of a children’s home for over 2 years was caught red-handed when he came to collect money.
The arrested is identified as Dinesh, (26), and his comrade-in-arms identified as Karthikeyan is on the run. The cops had recovered fabricated receipts from the phony office, which the suspect-duo ran.
The fraud came to light when the complainant, Ayyappan, (34), a realtor, learnt that he was being conned for the past 30 months to a fictitious home, when the staff's response towards him turned cold soon after he demanded an audience with the home-in-charge and a home visit.
After a week’s time, the con-artistes approached him over phone when it was convenient for him to make the monthly donation of '1,500, while conveniently ignoring both of his requests.
Ayyappan, who meanwhile, surfed the net to find the contacts of Annai Anbalaya and got networked to Sivakumar who runs the actual home in Athipattu village in Minjur.
Ayyappan who alerted the local police, and helped trap the con-artiste in the pretext of handing over the monthly collection. With Dinesh’s inputs, the cops raided the fraudulent office and seized some incriminating details.
It emerged that Dinesh and Karthikeyan had together forged the receipt books with all minute details including the license number corresponding to the original receipt of Annai Anbalaya except for the address and the contact numbers.
A hunt is on to trace Karthikeyan. It is still unclear as to how many sponsors did this duo managed to garner over the period of time.
Cops suspect that the racket could be a bigger one since the complainant stated that usually a female member would contact him for the monthly donation.
