Chennai: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Tamil Nadu police is on the trail of Rs 30 crore that was swindled by 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 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 became suspicious and after an audit was conducted by 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 EOW officer told IANS on condition of anonymity that, “The presence of the Sri Lankan Tamil is suspicious and we could not get 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.”
The officer said, “We are not ruling out any mischievous act on the part of the Sri Lankan Tamil who was living underground in Chennai. Only after the 118 companies are properly probed, we can reach some conclusion and now we have to investigate whether the swindled money was used in any way against India.”
–IANS