Kochi: The Ernakulam north police on Friday arrested four persons for allegedly cheating around Rs.10 crore from over 400 people across the country on the pretext of providing job visas to Australia.
The police booked the placement service firm of the accused and arrested the four identified as Arundas, 28, managing director hailing from Thathamangalam, Chithra C. Nair, 26, director, from Mankara, Palakkad, Sasthakumar,46, CEO from Coimbatore and Vishnu, 24, marketing executive from Mattannur.
The arrest was made following complaints by Palluruthy and Pattimattam natives claiming that the accused had swindled a total of Rs. 13 lakh from them.
After getting no response from the firm for months, the applicants who had paid huge amounts of money came to their office near Kaloor and found it locked.
They approached the corporate office of the firm at Coimbatore and collected a promissory note saying that all the money would be refunded within three months. It was after four or five months the applicants again approached the corporate office for not keeping the promise.
Meanwhile, as per the complaint, the company had acquired a court order against the applicants entering their office in future.
Following this, they approached Ernakulam north police station and gave a written complaint against the accused.
"After receiving the complaint, we tried to trace the accused, who went absconding, and frequently changed shelters in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu," an official said. However, with the help of the City Cyber Cell, the police traced the location of Vishnu, one of the accused, who reached his home for a short time. The cops arrested Vishnu with the help of Mattannur police the same day and traced Arundas and Chithra, who were in a hideout at Coimbatore.
"A team of police personnel in plain clothes was deployed near their hideout for a whole night and they nabbed them in the morning," an official said. Following that, the cops arrested Sastha.
According to the cops, Tamil Nadu police had tried to block the arrest of the accused at some point of time.
It was a team led by sub-inspectors Vibin Das and Anas, under the guidance of K. Laljy, assistant commissioner of police, Ernakulam, and K.J. Peter, SHO, Ernakulam north, that arrested the accused.
