10 held for swindling Rs 1.42 cr forging financial firm documents

Police said that all of them, claiming to be lorry owners had obtained a loan of Rs 1.42 crore from Shriram Transport Finance Company Ltd in Attur to purchase 14 lorries with Karnataka registrations. 

“They availed of the loan in November 26, 2014 and were supposed to complete their payments by June 7, 2016. However, the lorry owners dodged paying their monthly instalments,” police said. 

Following this, the financial firm ordered for seizure of the vehicles. Only then did they realise that the men had obtained loans by furnishing fake documents and above all they had also not  purchases any lorries, as claimed. 

Based on a complaint from the firm’s manager M Saravanan, the district crime branch police registered a case on 12 July and constituted a special team to probe the issue.  

After inquiry, six lorry owners K Kaliamurthy, P Kangamuthu, R Rayappan, M Venkadesan,  A Suresh, an AIADMK functionary and M Jayavel were arrested. 

As they confessed to have committed the offence in connivance with the staff of the firm, the police arrested field staff S Prabakaran and K Ragunathan. Two others, S Balaji and A Rajiv Gandhi working in other departments were also arrested. 

Police are now on the lookout for three other lorry owners, Gopu, Panneerselvam and Srinivasan. Further investigations  are on.