Man cons public, earns crores through ‘charity’

CHENNAI: A man who ran a call centre and made calls to the gullible public by claiming that they run a home for abandoned children and senior citizens and collected funds to the tune of several crore was arrested by a special team of Chennai Police on Wednesday.

Police learnt about the scam after a scrap dealer from Triplicane approached the Sembium police in January after he gave money for charity when he received a call and later when he went to check on the address in the receipt, he found a call centre with women making calls incessantly.

A special team was formed to investigate the complaint and after investigations, police traced the person who ran the call centre. The man was identified as Gopi (45) of Chintadripet. Police said that he went into hiding after learning that police are on the lookout for him.

A special team picked Gopi up from a hideout in Kodaikanal, police sources said. Based on the information provided by Gopi, Police further arrested Kannan (32), who was working as a supervisor at a home run by Gopi.

Police sources said that though Gopi runs a home for children, the money he got from the public was diverted for his personal use and he allegedly earned several crores in the last year alone. Both the accused were produced before a magistrate and remanded to judicial custody.