Three members of family arrested for cheating Coimbatore businessman

COIMBATORE: Coimbatore city crime branch police on Tuesday arrested three members of a family for allegedly cheating a businessman of more than Rs 15 crore.

Sivaraj, 40, son of Varadharajan from PSG Estates Colony at Peelamedu, lodged a complaint with Coimbatore city police commissioner V Balakrishnan on April 3. In his complaint, he stated that he runs spinning mills under the name of GGS Textiles India Private Limited and GG& Company.

Sivaraj, his mother Chitra and his grandmother Prema were directors of Prem Chittra Energy India Private Limited. P Ashwinkumar, a native of Salem, and his friends Vasanth, Siva and Chiranjeeviraj were working in his office and were handling income tax-related work to assist Sivaraj.

Sivaraj was facing income tax-related issues, and Ashwinkumar promised him that he would sort out the issue.

Ashwinkumar asked Sivaraj to make him one of the directors in the Prem Chittra Energy India Private Limited in 2017 and Sivaraj allotted two lakh equity shares of the firm to Ashwinkumar’s name.

Later, Ashwinkumar created two fabricated resignation letters of Sivaraj’s mother Chitra Varadharajan and grandmother Prema Govindasamy and submitted them to the registrar of companies (ROC). Ashwinkumar also shared 5.40 lakh numbers of equity shares to his name, his wife Sheela Devi, his daughter Deeksha and his son-in-law P Sakthi Sundar.

Preliminary inquiries revealed that Ashwinkumar had hatched a conspiracy with his family members and transferred more than 60% of company shares to his family members' names. He also forged documents and transferred a resort located at Udhagamandalam in the Nilgiris district to his and his family members’ names.

“Ashwinkumar, his family members and his friends were involved in the cheating, and they cheated Sivaraj of more than Rs 100crore worth properties,” said a senior police officer.

Police registered a case against P Ashwinkumar, his wife Sheela, 52, his daughter Deeksha, 29, his son-in-law Sakthisundar, 34, his close friends P Siva, 34 and R Vasanth, 32, Chiranjeeviraj of Ganapathy and Balamuruga Chandar from Vilankurichi in Coimbatore city under sections 120 (B), 406, 420, 465, 467, 468, 471 and 506 (ii) of the Indian Penal Code.

The city crime branch police arrested Sheela, her daughter Dheeksa and her son-in-law Sakthi Sundar from Salem on Tuesday and brought them to Coimbatore. They were produced before a judicial magistrate court -7 on Wednesday and were remanded in judicial custody.

Ashwinkumar was absconding.

City crime branch police registered a separate FIR against 13 people last month.



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