Chennai, March 25 (BPNS)
The Economic offenses wing (EOW) of the Tamil Nadu police is on the trail of Rs 30 crore that was swindled by a group of three people from a private finance company belonging to the son of a former AIADMK minister.
Three people including a Sri Lankan Tamil were arrested in the case. The first accused Ramesh was the Manager of the Private finance company belonging to Anto Stalin, son of AIADMK leader and former minister Lawrence.
Police said that the accused Ramesh in collaboration with his live-in partner Prema Sudha and a friend, Sudhakar who is incidentally a Sri Lankan Tamil swindled money to the tune of Rs 30 crore from the finance company.
The EOW team said that the accused floated 118 fictitious companies and provided loans from the finance company to these companies. Initially, from 2012 to 2018, interest was paid to the finance company but after this, it stopped.
Anto turned suspicious and on an audit conducted with a group of accountants, it was found that money was swindled from the finance firm and Ramesh was the main culprit. While the police arrested Ramesh a couple of months ago, both Prema Sudha and Sudhakar who is from Jaffna in Sri Lanka were arrested only on Wednesday.
A senior officer with the EOW while speaking to BPNS on conditions of anonymity said, “The presence of the Sri Lankan Tamil is suspicious and we could not find a proper answer on interrogating the trio. We are now following up on the 118 fictitious companies and the routes used to register these companies. We expect that this would give us some leads on the conspirators.”
The EOW officer also said that they are on a money trial as to how the swindled amount was spent as it is a huge amount and there are suspicions on whether this money was used for nefarious activities.
The officer said, “We are not ruling out any mischievous act on the part of the Sri Lankan Tamil who is living underground in Chennai. Only after the 118 companies are properly probed, we can reach some solution and now has to investigate whether the swindled money was used in any way against India. If so it will be curtains for all of you.
