Constable held for luring co-workers into investment scam

CHENNAI: Avadi City police on Saturday arrested a 31-year-old police constable, who lured several persons, many of them policemen themselves into investing in an 'oil company in Malaysia' and cheated them of Rs 1.4 crore.

The arrested constable was identified as R Dharman of Maduravoyal, attached to the Armed Reserve (AR).

The Central Crime Branch (CCB) of Avadi city police took up investigations based on a complaint from another constable, M Poompandi. According to his complaint, he was introduced to Dharman by another constable in Chennai Police’s AR, Ramesh.

Dharman deceived Poompandi to invest in a Malaysian oil company claiming that he would get returns of 15 % for his investment. Accordingly, the constable invested Rs 5 lakh in July. He paid in cash and got a receipt too. In the first month, Poompandi received Rs 75,000 after which Dharman persuaded him to add more people into the business.

“Some of his friends and relatives invested around Rs 12 lakh through Dharman,” Avadi city police said. Since some of them initially got their fair share of profit from the investment they made, they in turn added some more of their friends and relatives unknowingly into this vicious scam and collectively they had invested Rs 25 lakh.

Similarly, another group of police personnel had collectively invested a sum of Rs 1.2 crore through police constables, Janakiraman and Harikrishnan, who too were taken for a ride by constable, Dharman.

As Dharman was not able to keep up his words and after the first month, the investors did not get any returns after which they filed a complaint. He was produced before a magistrate and remanded in custody.