Bengaluru: Conman dupes 40 colleges by posing as vice-chancellor

BENGALURU:  A 35-year-old con artist posing as a vice-chancellor landed in police net after he had cheated over forty educational institutions, including some prestigious colleges in the state, by promising them affiliation and approval for medical and para-medical courses.

In a major breakthrough, the J.P. Nagar Police nabbed Santhosh Lohar, an M Tech graduate hailing from West Bengal. Lohar had set up a fake university and used to provide ‘approvals’ for more than 144 courses. He did not even spare his friend, a retired IAS officer, and indulged in fraudulent activities without his knowledge.

Lohar, who was on the run for over a month, was arrested on Friday from his flat in Thirumala Garden on Bannerghatta Road. Police have seized seals, bank credit cards, a car (registration number KA51 MA 2800) used for the con job. They also seized Rs 27 lakh from his bank accounts. Police are on the lookout for his associates Shivakumar, Mahesh, Babu, Chandrashekar, Rajesh and two others.

According to the police, through his meticulous planning the accused used to cheat gullible people. He used fake number plate indicating that his car was a government vehicle, a red beacon and all the requisite seals, letterheads to fool people. Lohar used to approach educational institutions assuring them of getting the Union government’s approval for running their courses.

According to police officials, who were part of the investigation, he not only provided approvals for existing institutions to run new courses, but even approvals for new colleges. Lohar had convinced officials of various educational institutions that he was getting approvals for them from the MCI. He had even created a fake Central Government gazette for his university and even had statutes and an Act in place for his university.

“He had a whole team with him for inspection of colleges and for granting affiliations,. He did everything as per procedure without arousing suspicion. The institutions were asked to send money only through DD to his account,” according to officials.

How he got exposed?
The con came to light after a Chennai-based educational institution with which Lohar had finalized a deal, grew suspicious after the management came across a news report about the arrest of one person (in April 2016) in a similar case in West Bengal, bearing the same university name that Lohar was using (Bio Chemic Grants Commission and University of Biochemic Health Sciences).

However, Lohar had managed to convince them the news report was false.
Lohar had collected close to Rs 80 lakh from the institution promising them permission to open a college. He had given them approval certificates and had asked them to go ahead with construction of building.

In May, when the management members visited Lohar’s office in JP Nagar, the office was locked. They grew suspicious and filed a complaint, based on which police began the investigation.  

Police however, did not reveal the names of the institutions that were cheated, stating that they did not want to discourage other such institutions from coming forward to lodge a complaint in case they too were cheated.