5 held for loan fraud, 8 kg gold seized

NT Correspondent Bengaluru, Dec. 24 A gang of five inter-state fraudsters who were offering loans at lower interest rates as a ruse to con businessmen have been arrested by the SG Palya police. A BMW car, around 8.215 kilograms of gold ornaments worth Rs 4.10 crore, around Rs 1.2 crore in cash has been recovered from the gang. They had cheated two businessmen of Rs 5.85 crore in November. Their modus operandi was as follows: They used to lure victims by promising loans at low interest rates, but used to take three months interest and pre-loan approval commission charges before releasing the loan amount. Once a victim pays up, they used to make excuses to delay the release of loan amount. The most common excuse was that there has been an income-tax raid on their office premises and would release the amount later. The accused had purchased around 11 kilograms of gold ornaments from the money the swindled from their victims. They had also paid a GST of Rs 33 lakh to purchase gold. A team of South East division police arrested the gang from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and other states. It may be recalled that the death of 65-year-old IITian A.K. Rao on the Yelahanka railway track in November was connected with a similar cheating case that was registered against the arrested accused in the SG Palya police station. Further investigations are on.