Woman held for con job in name of Collectors, husband on the run

An unidentified person contacted several VIPs in Thanjavur and introduced himself as the PA of the Collector Dinesh Ponraj Oliver and asked them to transfer Rs 50,000 each for various welfare schemes. He also sent them bank details.

Suspecting the genuineness of the call, they informed the Collector and in turn the Collector asked the police to probe it. Subsequently, the cybercrime wing found that the account was that of one Regina (40), who runs a beauty parlour in Coimbatore. The account was deactivated and she was unaware of such activities. Further probe led to a couple from Tiruvallur. Police identified them as Santhana Bharathi (65) and Rita Babiya (50).

On Monday night, police arrested Rita Babiya and searching is on for Santhana Bharathi. Meanwhile, police said that Rita confessed and said she and her husband used the accounts of women running beauty parlours to swindle money got by coning people in the name of district collectors.