Muttom, Idukki: A notorious fraudster who was behind the Total 4U scam that rocked Kerala a decade ago is back again duping gullible investors.
A group of 10 students from Pathamuttom village have complained to the police that an Rs 75 lakh was extorted from them by two fraudsters by offering them profit from a non-existent juice parlour.
The youth filed the police complaint against Sabarinath, who was the prime accused in the Total 4U fraud, and Thattarathodi Nibil Nath of Feroke in Kozhikode for duping them of Rs.75 lakh.
The police have begun an investigation after registering a case of cheating.
Modus operandi
The complainant said that the money was taken from them by making them believe that Nibil's brother is running a juice parlour in Tamil Nadu and profit from it will be shared with investors.
A fake partnership agreement was forged for the purpose by the accused. The complainants were wrongly shown the photographs of another juice shop as an advertisement of the shop run by Nithin's brother. It was also alleged in the complaint that Sabarinath called the complainants, posing as the owner of the juice parlour.
The complainants, who raised Rs 75 lakh by way of taking loan and joining chitty schemes, deposited the amount in Nibil's account with the ICICI Bank's Feroke branch. For the first six months, they got their profit share, but they did not get any money thereafter.
In the subsequent enquiry they made in Tamil Nadu, it was found that there was no such juice shop in Tamil Nadu and they were cheated by these fraudsters.
Nibil Nath is an old student of Muttom Engineering College.
Sabarinath is notorious for swindling at least Rs 200 crore from over a thousand people after soliciting investments in return for high interests. He was just 19 years old when he carried out the fraud. In 2016 he was convicted for 20 years by a Thiruvananthapuram court over two of the several cases registered by the Crime Branch.
He carried out the latest heist while out on parole.
